Volvo Cars, Siemens Plan Partnership to Build Electric Vehicles

Volvo Car Corp. and Siemens AG (SIE) said they plan a partnership to develop electric vehicles and aim to start testing the autos by the end of this year.

Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, will develop electric motors and charging systems with Gothenburg, Sweden- based Volvo. Siemens will try out as many as...

200 Volvo electric cars under real-life conditions by late 2012 following test- track studies in coming months, the manufacturers said in separate statements.

“We are moving ahead quickly in this area, Volvo Chief Executive Officer Stefan Jacoby said in the carmaker’s statement. ‘‘Our aim is to be first with the latest technology within electrification. The partnership reinforces our aim to pursue the fast-growing market for electric cars.’’

Volvo, which Ford Motor Co. (F) sold last year to China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., aims to more than double sales to 800,000 vehicles by 2020 from 373,525 last year. Doug Speck, head of the Swedish carmaker’s U.S. operations, said in January that the company is making introduction of hybrid-powered and fully electric models in that market a higher priority than introducing diesel vehicles there.

‘‘Cooperation with Volvo is an important milestone in the development of top-quality components and systems for electric cars subsequently intended for series production,” Siegfried Russwurm, head of Siemens Industry Sector, said in the Munich- based company’s statement. “It is our long-term goal to establish Siemens as a global system provider both inside and outside of electric vehicles.”

The Swedish carmaker said today that it will start small- scale production of an electric version of its smallest car, the C30, this year. Motors for that model are being supplied by Sennwald, Switzerland-based Brusa Elektronik AG, Per-Ake Froberg, a Volvo spokesman, said in a phone interview.

Source: Ola Kinnander, Bloomberg