Sales of the Volvo XC40 are going great guns, so much so that Gothenburg is struggling to meet the overwhelming demand for its small SUV. As such, the company announced that is is expanding production at its plant in Ghent, Belgium in order to meet the surge in orders – which now stand at almost 80,000.
That’s not all, as Volvo is also adding XC40 production to its Luqiao factory in China during the first half of next year. That facility is tooled to produce models based on Volvo and parent company Geely’s Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), including the XC40 as well as cars from the Lynk & Co brand.
Volvo also announced – to absolutely no one’s surprise – that it will capitalise on the XC40’s popularity by introducing further new models built on CMA. These 40 Series models, which will include fully electric vehicles, will replace the ageing V40 hatchback – for a long time Volvo’s only entry-level offering until the launch of the XC40 late last year.
“The XC40’s success has surpassed even our highest expectations,” said Volvo president and CEO Håkan Samuelsson. “The small SUV segment is the fastest-growing segment in the industry now, and with these additional CMA-based models we expect to benefit further from that growth.”
While Volvo is shifting production to China, it is also bringing Lynk & Co production to Ghent, the two companies confirmed in March. It’s also not the first time the company is building cars in China for export, as it is already producing the S90 for global markets in Daqing since last year.
GALLERY: Volvo XC40 in Singapore
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Volvo, Geely > all
just rebadge Proton XC40 & sell
Hi Geely, ready capacity for 400k unit in Tg Malim
Looks like winning the COTY award(XC40) for 2018 make it a sought after vehicles
Since we have plant here in Selangor, I am curious are we actually building XC40 here?
The Shah Alam plant is the only plant outside Sweden to assemble XC90 T8.
Now it assembles XC60. Pretty sure XC40 will be next.
Thanks for the reply. Pretty good for spareparts availability if the XC40 is to launch here if that’s the case.
make la in malaysia
MY plant too small for China volume