What's going on?

Volvo announced plans on Monday to list on the stock market, as the Swedish carmaker commits wholeheartedly to life in the sustainable lane.

What does this mean?

Volvo was planning to make its stock market debut back in 2018, but the carmaker � worried that the then-unavoidable trade war would hurt its valuation � ultimately decided against it. But things are different now: Volvo reported its best-ever results for the first half of a year in July, and investors have been keen to buy into major initial public offerings (IPOs) at any given opportunity. Throw in the fact that Polestar � 50% of which is owned by Volvo � saw strong investor demand when it announced plans to go public last week, and you can see why Volvo thinks now�s the time to bite the bullet. The IPO is set to value Volvo at more than $30 billion and should raise the carmaker around $3 billion in cash, which it�s planning to use to transition to electric vehicles (EVs) in earnest (tweet this).

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: Catch Tesla if you can.
Volvo might be right to double down on EVs, with demand going from strength to strength. Just look at Tesla: the OG EV-maker said over the weekend that it delivered a record-breaking 241,000 cars last quarter. Good thing the company is boosting production by building new plants in Texas and Berlin, then.

Zooming out: Change is here to stay.
You can see the trend playing out on a much bigger scale too: European EV sales are forecast to be 500% higher by the end of this year than they were in 2018, and 25% of new cars bought in China are expected to be electric within four years. And carmakers don�t want to miss out: one research consultancy says they�re planning to spend $330 billion on fine-tuning EV technology over the next five years � 40% more than they were shooting for last year.