Volvo is opening a new technology hub in Poland, its fourth in the world and second outside Sweden. The software development centre in Kraków, which will employ up to 600 people, will be part of the car manufacturer’s move towards all-electric production.
“[It will] play a crucial role in our strategic ambitions to be a fully electric brand by 2030 and a leader in new technology, not least through in-house software development,” says the firm. “The tech hub will carry full responsibility for developing complete and key features on our new fully electric cars.”
Volvo says Kraków was chosen because “the city is an emerging tech centre, with a broad network of tech firms in the region…[and] a large telecom sector”. The firm already has technology centres in Stockholm and Lund in Sweden as well as one in Bangalore in India.
Great day for Poland's #electromobilty sector! @VolvoCarPoland will invest in new R&D centre in @krakow_pl with 600 employees by 2025. The project was actively supported also by @PAIH_pl #FDI #inwestycje #Sweden #ElectricVehicles #Volvo https://t.co/SSk1Kjnff1
— Sebastian Magier (@SebastianMagier) February 27, 2023
The Kraków hub will be operational by the end of this year, initially employing 120 staff, rising to 500-600 by 2025. Volvo has already launched the hiring process by posting job advertisements for embedded software engineers, system architects and testers.
“The engineers will work on solutions related to safety, but also with basic support for on-board computers,” says Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars, quoted by news service Interia.
Although Poland has one of the EU’s lowest proportions of electric vehicles – with only 3.6% of newly registered cars being electric or hybrid – the country is becoming a major production hub.
There are now 67,000 electric vehicles registered in Poland, 63% more than a year ago.
However, the figure remains well below government targets – which had initially envisioned one million electric cars by 2025 – and among the lowest in the EU https://t.co/c9rLWHJY5H
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 18, 2023
In 2020, it became the EU’s largest exporter of electric buses, with Solaris – a Spanish-owned Polish manufacturer – Europe’s largest producer of such buses.
The following year it was announced that Poland will host the first facility in the European Union and one of the first in the world for processing used car batteries and other types of waste from electric vehicles.
In July last year, SK Nexilis, a South Korean manufacturer of copper foil used in electric-car batteries, inaugurated the construction of a 3 billion zloty (€627 million) factory in the southeastern Polish city of Stalowa Wola.
In December last year, another major car manufacturer Mercedes announced €1 billion investment to establish a factory in Poland to exclusively produce electric vans.
Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to invest over €1 billion to establish a factory in Poland that will be its first to exclusively produce electric vans https://t.co/HyQ9XdQaR8
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 12, 2022
Main photo credit: One Tonne Life/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
