- 2025 total sales fell 7%, and Volvo’s global EV sales dropped 13% year-over-year.
- U.S. EVs jumped 91% in 2025, but U.S. plug-ins fell 23% as PHEVs dropped 40%.
- China BEVs fell 46% in 2025, while PHEVs surged 116%.
The electric vehicle market changed and fluctuated through 2025 and many automakers ended up selling fewer cars than they were hoping. Volvo revealed today that its global year-over-year sales figure for 2025 was 710,042, which is 7% less than the 763,389 vehicles it sold in 2024.
Even though sales were 2% higher in December, it wasn’t enough to offset a difficult year for the Geely-owned automaker. In its annual sales report, Erik Severinson, Volvo’s Chief Commercial Officer noted that “Despite a challenging market that continues to be under pressure on multiple fronts, we are encouraged to see increased deliveries of our fully electric products, notably the EX90 and EX30.”
He went on to acknowledge that “2025 was a challenging year for Volvo Cars and the broader industry,” but the company has “taken necessary measures to increase our share in the fast-growing BEV and PHEV segments.”
Looking over the region-specific sales numbers for 2025, there are some surprising differences. In Europe, for instance, total annual sales were down 10%, with EV sales falling by 22% and PHEVs by 3%. In China, the annual sales tally was also negative (down by 4%), with EVs falling by 46%, although plug-in hybrids saw strong growth with a year-over-year increase of 116%.
Volvo hopes that the newly launched XC70 can help bring in even more PHEV sales in 2026, even if the segment seems to be shrinking as more Chinese buyers are going full electric.
U.S. sales were down 3% for all powertrains but they were down 23% for plug-in vehicles even though EVs were up 91%, jumping from 5,608 units sold in 2024 to 10,708 sold in 2025. Volvo PHEVs had a bad year, though, with sales down 40%, a drop from 37,294 to 22,379. Hopefully the new XC60 PHEV, which will be built in the U.S., will help bolster sales in this segment.
Overall, Volvo sold 323,294 EVs and PHEVs last year, which is 8% less than the 352,787 vehicles it sold in 2024. It had to eliminate around 3,000 jobs this year as it went into cost-cutting mode citing increasing material costs, lower-than-expected demand for pure electric vehicles and global trade uncertainty brought by import tariffs.
Back in May when the manufacturer announced the cutbacks, the president and CEO Håkan Samuelsson said “The automotive industry is in the middle of a challenging period. To address this, we must improve our cash flow generation and structurally lower our costs. At the same time, we will continue to ensure the development of the talent we need for our ambitious future.”
Volvo is also gearing up to start production of a fully electric 800-volt midsize crossover called the EX60 with 670 horsepower, 10% to 80% charging in 20 minutes and powerful Nvidia Drive Thor chips. This is possibly the Swedish manufacturer’s most important new model, and we’ll be in Stockholm to see the model unveiled later this month.
