Marking an important milestone in the development of its brand new VEA (Volvo Engine Architecture) family of four-cylinder turbocharged gasoline and diesel powerplants, Volvo announced today that the first engine variants started production at the company’s plant in Skövde, Sweden.
Following a similar strategy with other carmakers such as BMW, Volvo’s new engine family reduces the number of unique engine parts between diesel and petrol units by an impressive 60 percent and allows the manufacturing of all engines on the same production line.
The Swedish automaker said it has invested around two billion kronor (€233 million / US$302 million) in the Skövde plant for the production of the new engines.
According to Volvo, the VEA family of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines together with driveline electrification will eventually replace the previous eight engine architectures on three different platforms. The new powerplants will be introduced into the range between 2013 and 2015, beginning this fall with the S60, V60, XC60, V70, XC70 and S80 models.
The next step for the Swedish company will be the introduction of the new modular SPA platform (Scalable Product Architecture) that will be used on a variety of models starting with the XC90 replacement in 2014. The new platform has been designed in parallel with the VEA engine family.
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