Swedish-Swiss multinational ABB will supply Volvo’s factories in Torslanda (Sweden) and Daqing (China) next year with 1 300 robots to build the carmaker’s next generation of electric cars. These robots will cover various production tasks, from spot-welding, riveting, and dispensing to flow drilling and ultrasonic weld inspection.

ABB, a historic partner for its compatriot, claims its latest range of OmniCore robot controllers will help to deliver energy savings of up to 20 percent at sites due to their highly efficient power electronics and the use of regenerative braking within the robot.

Three European plants

“The automotive industry’s historic transformation, driven by increasing consumer demand for electric vehicles and a desire to operate more sustainably, is creating new opportunities and challenges for global manufacturers,” said Marc Segura, ABB Robotics President. “This latest commitment from our partner Volvo Cars demonstrates our shared focus of delivering more sustainable manufacturing.”

Volvo Cars’ production plants today are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (US), Chengdu, Daqing, and Taizhou (China). In July 2022, Volvo announced it would establish a third European manufacturing plant.

The new state-of-the-art plant in Kosice, Slovakia, will be climate-neutral and build only electric cars, underpinning the company’s ambition to become fully electric by 2030 and climate-neutral by 2040.

Investing in Torslanda

Volvo decided last year to invest 10 billion Swedish crowns (€898 million) in its Torslanda manufacturing plant in Sweden in the coming years in preparation for the production of the next generation of fully electric cars. These included the introduction of the mega casting of aluminum body parts, a new battery assembly plant, and fully refurbished paint and final assembly shops.

The Torslanda plant, opened in April 1964, has an annual production capacity of 300 000 cars and is one of Volvo Cars’ longest-operating manufacturing facilities. It employs around 6 500 people.

Volvo Cars has been owned by the Chinese Zhejiang Geely Holding since 2010. After getting full control over the Daqing plant in 2014, Volvo started manufacturing its premium S90 sedan for world export in 2016, becoming the only plant to produce it. A railroad connection between Daqing and Zeebrugge (Belgium) is operated as a faster way of transporting them to Europe.

Belgian factory to produce EX30

In Belgium, Volvo Cars has its second giant car factory in Ghent. After pioneering the XC40 and the C40 Recharge electric models, Volvo decided in 2022 to ready the factory to gear up production of fully electric cars (BEVs) nationally to 150,000. That’s still far under the factory’s theoretical max capacity of 240 to 250 000 vehicles.

In October 2023, the Swedish manufacturer decided also to start building the new Volvo EX30 in its Ghent plant in Belgium in 2025, expanding production capacity for the small SUV. Production of the EX30 began earlier this fall in Zhangjiakou, China. The latest ABB robots will probably find their way to Belgium later.