Volvo working on its own BMW X1 rival

Volvo has announced that the first vehicle to be built on its all new small-car platform will be a compact SUV that will go on sale early 2018.

The revelation that the car-maker is rushing to develop a rival for the BMW X1 andr Mercedes GLA was made by newswire, Automotive News, following a leak from a senior source close the Swedish car-maker.

Set to be called the XC40, the new SUV is the first car set to benefit from the state-of-the-art small-car platform and a 200 million euro investment at Volvo’s Ghent plant in Belgium.

Later on in 2019 an all-new replacement for the V40 and V40 Cross Country will also follow the XC40. Like the all-new small SUV the V40 hatch will also be based on the CMA platform.

The same CMA architecture will also go on to underpin Chinese car-maker Geely’s future small vehicles in an effort to share the huge cost of development.

Volvo has already announced that all of its future cars will come with in-house developed powertrains, including plug-in hybrids.

Both the XC40 and V40 are almost certain then to come equipped with a new range of three- of four-cylinder petrol and diesel enngines that the Swedish car-maker is known to be developing.

From 2020 all Volvo cars, including small vehicles like the XC40 and V40, will come with the option of fully autonomous driving aids.

According to Automotive News, Volvo is currently struggling with unprecedented demand for its big XC90, forcing it to stop making its S60 sedan in a bid to maintain supplies of its large SUV.

Volvo had expected to sell 50,000 XC90s per year globally but all those cars sold out quickly and Volvo has now received more than 65,000 orders.

The success of the XC90 means this year the Swedish car-maker will sell 500,000 vehicles. Volvo hopes to sell 800,000 cars by 2020 for the Swedish car-maker to be “viable”.