Volvo on Tuesday introduced its
first vehicle designed and built under Chinese ownership. But the
influence, if any, of the new owners from Hangzhou has been carefully
hidden by many layers of Swedish aesthetic.
The new XC90 will be launched next April in the US, where Volvo has
been losing market share.
The vehicle, a seven-seat sport utility vehicle known as the XC90
that will go on sale in April next year, is probably a make-or-break
model for Volvo. It must succeed for the company to regain stature in
the United States, where a few decades ago - before the advent of SUVs
- the Volvo station wagon was a suburban status symbol.
It will be sold in Europe and Asia too but Volvo expects the United
States to account for at least a third of sales. The car-maker wants to
replace BMW, Mercedes and Audi SUVs in the driveways of the well-to-do.
Since Zhejiang Geely Holding bought the company from Ford Motor Co
in 2010, China has become Volvo Cars' largest market. But that is
partly because sales in other markets have been poor. Sales in the US
fell 10 per cent during the same period, and Volvo's US market share
has shrunk to a nearly irrelevant 0.35 per cent.
Still, the car company - separate from the Volvo Group, a
truck-maker - has returned to profit after losses in late 2012 and
early last year, and sales rose 10 per cent in the first half of this
year, to 229,000 cars.
To achieve its goal of doubling global sales to 800,000 vehicles a
year, Volvo is promoting its traditional emphasis on passenger safety
while pumping up the elegance, albeit in a restrained Swedish way.
Along with a shock-absorbing seat meant to protect a passenger's spine
in a crash, and automatic braking to avoid collisions with people or
other cars, the XC90 has a shift lever inlaid with Swedish-made glass
crystal.
Volvo said its goal was to ensure that, by 2020, no one would be killed or seriously injured in a Volvo car.
Volvo is also putting more emphasis on fuel economy and emissions
than in the past, addressing anxiety among some buyers that a big SUV
makes them look insensitive to climate change. The top-of-the-line
model will be a plug-in hybrid capable of travelling about 40km solely
on battery power.
Yet, according to Volvo, the combination of a petrol engine in front
and electric motor in the rear will deliver a hefty 400 horsepower and
allow the hybrid XC90 to accelerate to 100kmh in 6.4 seconds.
It has an interior designed to evoke an elegant Swedish living room
and an optional sound system that supposedly replicates the acoustics
of the concert hall in Gothenburg, the hometown of Volvo Cars.
"We think it's absolutely necessary to come back to that territory,"
Mr Hakan Samuelsson, the chief executive of Volvo Cars, told reporters
in Stockholm on Tuesday. "With this car, we will take a big step."
Volvo has not yet named a price for the top-tier model, but it said
a reasonably well-equipped conventionally powered version with
all-wheel-drive would sell for less than US$50,000 (S$62,000) in the
US. That is more than the starting price of US$39,000 for an Audi Q5
but less than a BMW X5, which starts at US$55,000.
Volvo is to begin taking online orders next Wednesday for a conventionally powered special edition of the XC90 for US$65,900.
Mr Dennis Nobelius, a Volvo Cars vice-president, said that the
design team in Sweden was given a free hand and there was no
micromanaging by the Chinese owners.
While Geely managers have "a burning passion" for cars, Mr
Samuelsson said during a question-and-answer session with about a dozen
reporters that "they are not sending in experts and controllers".
