Volvo can consistently deliver a high-quality product when it comes to luxury cars. Like many other luxury brands during the pandemic, customers held off from buying due to the economic downturn. However, like a few other automakers, Volvo managed to rebuild quickly from its pandemic lows for sales.

New Volvo cars in a new era

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the U.S., few people knew how bad it was going to be. Things are starting to get better. Not that the world is close to putting the pandemic in the review mirror, but those first few months were rocky. Millions of people lost their jobs, the stock market collapsed, and for Volvo in particular, few cars were being sold.

In the first few months of the pandemic, sales fell about 18 percent compared to the year before. This made a lot of sense. Being a luxury brand meant that someone who just lost their job probably wasn’t going to look at buying a luxury car. But of course, Volvo was ready to stimulate sales one way or another.

In late 2020, Volvo introduced the Recharge. It’s not a model but rather a line of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. Many folks had money sitting around in their bank accounts since the pandemic didn’t really hurt the incomes of the upper-middle class and the rich. Many of those folks chose to buy a brand-new car, and as it turns out, many chose to buy a Volvo.

Volvo recently announced record sales

Those sales figures kept improving in late 2020, and it’s been even better in 2021. According to Volvo, in the first half of 2020, the company sold just under 270,000 cars around the world. Europe was the biggest customer, with about 123,000 cars in those first six months. China was second, with about 66,000 cars, and the U.S. came in third with 43,000.

In the first half of 2021, Volvo smashed those numbers and sold a total of 380,000 cars worldwide, which represents a 41 percent increase from last year. The luxury brand said that this was the company’s best first six months of sales, ever. Europe was responsible for buying about 167,000 Volvos, a 35.4 percent year-over-year increase from 2020. China was again in second, as 95,000 Volvos were sold, a 44.9 percent year-over-year increase.

The strongest growth happened in the U.S, as almost 64,000 Volvos were sold in 2021 so far. This represents a 47.4 percent year-over-year increase in sales. Volvo wrote that those new Recharge models represent about 24.6 percent of all sales so far. This means that 1 in 4 cars being sold right now is part of the Recharge lineup. 

What the lineup will look like in the future

The great success of those brand-new Recharge models is by design. After all, the company aims to have 50 percent of its production cars run on electric power by 2025, and that goal is less than five years away. Many Volvo customers want a Recharge should be very encouraging news to the company and fans.

As such, Volvo is almost definitely going to continue pursuing that goal. Many of the lineups are currently available with a PHEV powertrain, but only a handful are fully electric. In the near future, Volvo will probably continue electrifying its lineup. And, based on current sales figures, customers will continue buying those eco-friendly versions.