Volvo’s mega changemaker
By Nick Holt and Claas Alexander Stroh2022-02-28T13:30:00
Javier Varela, senior vice-president of engineering and operations, is leading Volvo Cars’ industrial transformation, from platform engineering through to vehicle production. He explains key steps in the carmaker’s ramp up in EV and battery output, and how it will achieve ambitious sustainability targets
As Volvo Cars’ lead for R&D, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and quality, Javier Varela has a bird’s eye view of the carmaker’s transformation to build fully electric, carbon zero and software-driven vehicles in just a few years’ time. While Volvo revealed its roadmap last year – including selling only EVs by 2030 and attaining climate neutrality by 2040 – the scale of that investment and change for the Geely-owned company is becoming more apparent.