Volvo, which is now owned by Chinese carmaker Geely, has revealed its ambitious plans in China, which is now the world’s largest and most promising market. The Swedish brand will allocate $10 billion in investments over the next 5 years to achieve 20% market share in China’s luxury car segment in 2015.
To make one in five premium brand cars in China a Volvo, the Swedes need to sell 200,000 vehicles in China by 2015, compared to just 39,000 sold in 2010. Volvo also has plans to expand its dealer network to 220 by 2015 from the current 106.
To achieve that goal, Volvo will open a new plant in the southwest city of Chengdu in 2013. The facility will include assembly, engine and transmission plants, and will be sitting next to a Geely factory. The Chengdu plant will also house Volvo’s new centres for research, parts procurement and sales in western China. Volvo is also looking at having another factory in Daqing, northeast China.
“That’s one of the benefits which we have here being a Chinese company and enjoying most of the benefits of labour,” Volvo CEO Stefan Jacoby told CNN. “Geely is a manufacturer offering cars for the lower-end of the auto industry and Volvo is definitely a premium and a luxury brand at the upscale segment of the auto industry. We have no intention to bundle this or to combine this,” assured the ex-head of VW America.
His employers sang in the same tune. “We continue to uphold our principle of Geely is Geely and Volvo is Volvo,” Geely board chairman Li Shufu said. The company also assured that its new plants will not affect operations and employment in Europe, so Chinese output is likely to be just for local consumption.
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I really hope they do well.
Volvo cars are not the best in its class, but they have very sensible technology that are built around the concept of safety and ergonomics.
I personally feel that the dash layout in modern Volvos, beginning with the previous S60 and S80 cars are the most intuitive you’ll ever find.
I doubt it will do well now suffering from this China image. The hummer was once the favourite car of all black hip hop stars. Once China bought it, nobody bought Hummer anymore.
The same would be with Volvo. All the more with Malaysians. If the Black hip hop stars can surprisingly be conscious of how crap China quality is, Malaysians are even more conscious.. We strongly believe in paying good hard earned money for only Mat Salleh products. We can deny all we want, but whenever we go to the supermarket even, we try our level best to buy anything not “Made in Malaysia”. Eg when you go to the juice section, honestly ask yourself, are you happy to buy Marigold that is local made or do you buy Ceres or Del Monte?
I think no one bought anymore Hummers because the brand was wound down, not because of the Chinese :)
http://paultan.org/2010/02/25/hummer-sale-to-chinas-tengzhong-fails-winding-down-process-starts/
Ever wondered why the Swedish Embassy stopped using Volvo as their official DC cars? You know, the Swedes are so patriotic to their Volvo brand and very particular that all their official staff, including the PM, use Volvo. Now, they stopped. Embassy in KL also stopped using Volvo. Not because of the cost for sure. Cause, its a China car now. They knew this long ago. Now, its officlal, its 100% china made car. Soon they will call it Volvo Alado and use the Cherry parts in them. Chinaman from China are like that, they will slowly take full control of what they buy and integrate the product with their low quality China parts.
In automotive terms, stakes are higher and hence, products that roll out from countries like China and India may not suffer as much as food products. Everyone is now waiting for the next Jag to roll out from India, and i doubt they’ll do a shoddy job given what’s at stake.
Very soon Audi and Lexus will be eaten by Volvo. Volvo for life !!!
Ha Ha Ha Ha. Finally, all the Volvo fans now cannot deny. their car is really china made.
They made so much of noise saying it was only “owned” by a Chinese company but still was pure Swedish. Now, we see the trurth. All the negative comments have proven true.
Its just a matter of time before the gear handle comes out or the paint on the gear knob emit toxic chemicals. So what is so different now between Volvo and Akira? Same thing lah.
The brand is already dead in Malaysia, now, with this news, its already in the coffin. No Malaysian, other than sad Volvo owners who are trying to save their already dead brand, will ever pay RM300,000 to buy a China product.
I hope you aren’t an owner of a Lenovo or Huawei product. :-D
RM$350,000 product and RM$1500 got different risks involved. Most people can afford to throw their notebook or 3G modem in the bin if it gives too much of hassle. But would you dare buy, say a RM1 million Ferrari but it was Made in China?
Different quantum lah dei.
Actually, with news like this, the possibility of Ferrari being built in China in the near future seems quite high:
Ferrari Achieves Record Sales in China in 2010
Published Jan 6, 2011
http://www.insideline.com/ferrari/ferrari-achieves-record-sales-in-china-in-2010.html
“That makes China … one of the top five international markets for Ferrari, when the sales figures for Hong Kong and Taiwan are added.”
Though HK is under China, in heart and spirit, it will never be China lah. So, most of the sales of Ferrari made in HK lah, HK has the highest Rolls Royce int he world too.
So in reality, China is not top 5 5 (in you don’t include HK)
I was replying to his inference that everything that’s touched by a China company fails.
Hope that Volvo can sold more hybrid car with affordable price to counter air pollution in China
its just a matter of time before local consumption (china) becomes GLOBAL CONSUMPTION.
So now, before that happens, most spare parts will be Made in China. So current Volvo owners, enjoy using these China made parts. Hopefully, they don’t come apart.
Can you imagine, spending RM300,000 on a disguised Geely? Yes, its merely a disguised Geely.
Volvo now joins Fiat, Citroen, Alfa, MG etc as a member of the dead brands in Malaysia.
Nowadays, even the German brands are also highly dependent on China market for a huge chunk of their bottomline/margins! People can’t deny that.
Gelly disguised as Volvo? That is not going to happen. Common sense will tell that Volvo’s customer will run away. Geely boss will surely lose their investment in Volvo if they let that happened.
Agreed.
Alex Tham, the automotive industry is not as easy as a cut and paste job.
That is why Volvo bought by Geely. Now have more budget to build the brand. No matter how good is the brand but without budget and good management it can’t fly higher. The sky is the limit. RM300K for S60, this model way before takeover by Geely. We can’t say too much now cos yet any new model launch after takeover. Volvo’s car not as dynamic as Bimmer, Merz & Audi…… Budget issue I guess. Hope now on we have more on par cars vs B, M & A.
Engine and transmission plant in Chengdu?
What engines they want to produce there? Volvo used engines from other manufacturers in the past in their cars, i.e. from Mitsubishi and Ford.
I once read, that they bought the Audi 5cyl engine after it was phased out by Audi. They hold the rights for this engine design, so this 5cyl can be called ‘their’ engine.
But how about 4cl. and 6cyl engines? Do they want to design new engines? Or do they have a license to build 4cyl Mitsubishi and 6cyl Ford engines in China? Or will future Volvo’s have 4cyl Geely engines?
IU believe the 5 cylinder engine they’ve been using since the 90s were self developed, which is why they stuck to it even until today. They do have 6 cylinder engines, as applied in S80 T6 and XC90T6. But because development costs were high, they won’t go as far as a V8.
In fact the 5 cylinder engine made it to the Ford Focus range.
Volvo will sell 200,000 cars just to cater China market alone… even without opening it’s door to foreign investor.. china can survive on it’s own..wow..kadang2 best gak ramai rakyat nie hehehe..
dude…just because the the volvo is owned by the chinese does not mean sales will suffer…infact….they are doing rather well …as long as they protect and let the brand go..they will only get stronger….jaguar and land rover are owned by the indians..and they are doing better than ever…..its all about how the firm is managed dude….maybe they have lost one buyer in u (if u can afford them) ..
..but the manner in which u qoute ‘black rap stars’ and the like really shows ur limited scope of things..they set trends for 18 year olds man…people that actually buy this luxury cars dont really care about what they say……this is a motoring blog dude….its all about loving cars and not dissing who they are owned by..the money is now in india ,china and russia ….geely is smart for just leavin the brand alone..and if they stick to it..its only getting stronger..oh yea..im an indian btw..so dun think the rest are ganging up on ya ;)
You must be a Volvo owner worried that his already falling 2nd value is falling further. Volvo owners now are so scared that even the banks might call of their loans as the loans now are higher than the value of their cars and the cars no more represent collateral.
Pity all the Volvo owners here. Soon when everybody terms the car as a China car, Volvo won’t exist here in Malaysia.
Hey pal, does that mean that Indian-owned Jaguar is an Indian car? What kind of mentality is that?