VOLVO CARS AIMING FOR AN IPO BY YEAREND

Volvo Cars is "making good progress" toward a potential initial public offering (IPO) by the end of this year, the chief executive of the Swedish premium auto brand told Paul Lienert of Reuters.

"We are looking at the possibility of doing an IPO before the end of the year," listing shares on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in an interview.

Samuelsson and other Volvo Cars executives on Wednesday laid out an extensive road map to becoming a fully electric car maker by 2030, including plans to sell 600,000 battery electric vehicles at mid-decade and build a European battery gigafactory in 2026.

Volvo Cars earlier this year scrapped a proposed merger with the company's Chinese parent, Hong Kong-listed Geely Automobile. In March, Geely said Volvo Cars would explore capital market options, including an initial public offering and stock market listing.

A flock of startups has gone public in the United States and China over the past two years, following electric vehicle market leader Tesla Inc. in taking advantage of investor enthusiasm to raise cheap capital to compete with established brands such as Volvo.

Samuelsson said Volvo Cars and Geely will continue to share vehicle architectures, internal combustion powertrains, and other components.

But the companies will do so at "an arm's length distance," consistent with the way independent companies do business, he said.

During Wednesday's briefing, Volvo Cars also said it plans to equip many of its future vehicles with self-driving technology, including standard lidar sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc. and computers from Nvidia Corp.

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