Volvo To Build Future Flagship In China
Published: November 14th, 2014
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With the Chinese-made S60L set to hit the United States next year, Volvo is taking the next step in building luxury cars in China, with plans for a new flagship to be built at a factory in Daqing.
The enhancements to the factory will allow it to build vehicles on Volvo’s new modular architecture. The first product will be an “all-new premium sedan”, expected to be the new flagship S90 sedan. Volvo is gearing up for exports of the S60L, a long-wheelbase S60 made in China, for the 2015 model year. The S60L will be the first Chinese car sold in the United States.
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If "L" means long version this makes sense since most will be sold in china where people have drivers. And it is a Chinese company... why is it surprising they make cars in China? Over the long run they may only do RD in Sweden, unless they really really get successful and can command high prices. Then they extend production in china and keep the Swedish factory with some token production to give us the Swedish illusion.
I bought my Volvo about 6 months before Ford announced the sale to Geely. I was pretty shocked and angry, but decided to wait and see what happened. I'm glad I did, because they have done absolutely nothing to lose my future business. The dealership experience has improved - they have a better scheduling system, they lowered the labor rate and they made pretty much any non-parts fix free if it takes less than an hour. If you take it in for an oil change, diagnostics and software updates are done (for free) while they are doing the change, etc. I won't guarantee that my next car will be a Volvo, but I have no reason not to consider one. And as far as the S60L and new flagship are concerned, it seems to make perfect sense to manufacture the cars in their largest market. If the US or Europe suddenly falls in love with a long-wheelbase version of a Volvo, they would probably start building in in Europe too.
There was a similar attitude elsewhere when Rolls production began in the U.S... The 260 was let down by the PRV. For Volvo in the sixties the 164 was the better luxury reboot. Volvo's a durable brand name. It keeps rising from the ashes like a sphinx.
Every major car maker from GM to Ford to VW/Audi / M-Benz / BMW has invested BILLIONS in China. Infiniti's HQ is now technically in China (Hong Kong). If you guys were really so serious about protesting China's involvement with car brands, you should be widening your net. Maybe even take your protest signs down the road to the place you got your car. The brands most people are holding up here as the "world standard" have major investments there, are paying BIG money in taxes to the Chinese government (this might be a shock to some of you since you probably haven't considered this...), and are training people in China how to build high-quality products (I'm guessing it doesn't do BMW et al. any good in the long term to build sub-par products in China). From this site: "Hold the usual comments: The quality of cars made at joint venture factories in China is usually indistinguishable from imports. As long as the cars are made from foreign plans, with foreign methods and foreign QA, they sometimes exceed the imports." http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/11/it%E2%80%99s-starting-bmw-to-export-made-in-china-5-series/