Changan's Engineering Moves To Nottingham, Volvo's To Shanghai

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

China’s Changan (joint venture partner of Ford, Suzuki and PSA) wants to draw on British engineering know-how and established a research-and-development center in Nottingham, England.

After Turin, Italy, and Yokohama, Japan, this is Changan’s third foreign R&D Center. According to The Nikkei [sub], the Nottingham facility will focus their research on car bodies and engines. 30 engineers work there already, Changan wants to hire 200 engineers by 2013. The Chinese automaker plans to draw on Nottingham’s strength: 10 percent of its population are college students.

In related news, Geely has plans to build a R&D center for Volvo in the Anting suburb of Shanghai, says Automotive News [sub]. Shanghai International Automobile City is a huge industrial park, centered on SAIC and Shanghai Volkswagen. It is also home to countless parts suppliers.

“We have reached a deal and the R&D center will be built in our automobile city,” said Xu Ming, the City’s vice general manager. Words that will most likely raise suspicion in Sweden. Didn’t Geely promise to leave Volvo engineering in Sweden?

Nottingham’s University has a campus in Ningbo near Shanghai. Anting is home of the Anting Automotive College of Shanghai’s Tongji University.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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 4 comments
  • Stingray Stingray on Jul 12, 2010

    Nice... for the British Not so for the Swedish.

  • Omnifan Omnifan on Jul 12, 2010

    If we don't want the Chinese to move western companies facilities to China after they buy them, we shouldn't be sending all of our money to China for cheap consumer goods. They now own Volvo and can do whatever they want with it. Obviously they are.

  • Tstag Tstag on Jul 12, 2010

    Of course the Chinese are already in the UK via MG...

  • Paul W Paul W on Jul 12, 2010

    That's VERY interesting. Volvo just recently whined publicly that there weren't enough engineers in Sweden (didn't they lay off like 700 not too long ago?) and that in the future they might have to take their R&D department abroad. Everyone with half a brain saw it as a lame excuse to move as much of the organization to China as soon as possible and I guess they were right.

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