Volvo CEO Lex Kerssemakers outlined the maker's plans to develop a family of small cars it will share with Geely Motors.
Volvo is pushing ahead with the development of a new family of small cars that it will share with its Chinese parent, Geely Motors.
The work on new architecture will is being completed at Volvo’s Technical Center in Gothenburg, Sweden, Lex Kerssemakers, president and chief executive officer of Volvo Cars USA, said after a luncheon speech to the Economic Club of Chicago.
“We had the expertise in Gothenburg, but the modular architecture, which will support several different models in the future, will be shared with other Geely’s growing automotive empire,” said Kerssemakers, who headed up Volvo’s product planning staff at one point during his long career with Volvo.
“We have small cars now,” he added, “the S40 and V40. But the new small car platform will incorporate the latest advances in emissions, autonomous driving and accident-free driving that are part of Volvo’s strategic vision.”
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Kerssemakers said the new small car family will incorporate autonomous driving technologies.
The new small-car architecture will also incorporate lessons learned during the development of the platform that now supports vehicles, such as the XC90, which was recently named the North American Truck of the year, the S60 and new S90, he said.
The midsized vehicle platform has been very successful, Kerssmakers noted. The introduction of the XC90 in the U.S. last summer was instrumental in boosting Volvo’s total sales by 24%, he said.
In 2015, Volvo sold more than 500,000 vehicles worldwide for the first time in its history, which reaches back almost 90 years to its founding in 1927.
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It’s too early to declare victory, but Volvo’s objective is to boost sales to 800,000 units annually by 2020. To reach the ambitious target, Volvo has built two new plants in China and started construction of a new plant in South Carolina, which is scheduled to open in 2018.
Kerssemakers acknowledged there was a substantial amount of skepticism within the auto industry fraternity when Geely acquired Volvo from the Ford Motor Co. back in 2010. But Geely has helped Volvo raise more than $11 billion in new capital and has given the Volvo executives the independence needed to chart their own course.
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“We don’t have anyone but ourselves to blame if things don’t work out,” he said. “We have our destiny in our own hands.