Volvo is making investments that allow for the in-house design and development of electric motors, as the company continues to move towards becoming a fully electric car maker.

The company opened a brand-new electric motor lab in Shanghai, China. The lab comes in addition to ongoing e-motor development in Gothenburg, Sweden and state-of-the-art battery labs in China and Sweden. Taking over the role of the internal combustion engine in car engineering, e-motors are a fundamental building block of electric cars, together with the battery and power electronics.

Bringing the development of electric motors in-house will allow Volvo engineers to further optimize electric motors and the entire electric driveline in new Volvos. This approach will allow engineers to make further gains in terms of energy efficiency and overall performance.

E-motors enable hallmark features that electric cars are known for, such as instant acceleration and so-called One Pedal Driving, whereby drivers use the gas pedal both for acceleration and deceleration, depending on whether they push in or lift their foot off the pedal.

The newly opened electric motor lab in Shanghai became operational last month. It will mainly focus on electric motor development for use in fully electric and hybrid cars based on Volvo’s forthcoming SPA 2 modular vehicle architecture.