7th Apr 2015, 17:45
The statement about Volvo's overall sales and market share increasing is true only when you include their home market of China, but overall European and US sales have otherwise been trending downward in the midst of robust automotive markets. Volvo's combined European and US sales totaled 310,976 in calendar year 2014, representing 1.1% share of a 28.5M combined auto market. Volvo closed out 2011 with sales of 323,607 in Europe/US, reflecting 1.2% market share of a 26.3M combined auto market. In this period overall sales in Europe/US grew by 2.2 million units, however Volvo's combined sales dropped by 12,631 units.
Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., the owner of Volvo Cars, is led by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu, whose strategy is to grow Volvo with new factories in China. To support; the central Chinese government has committed to add Volvo cars to approved purchase lists for official fleets that totaled 750,000 cars in 2012. This will ensure the factories slated for China will be successful, and hopefully bring Volvo the scale they need to be competitive.
In 2016 Volvo will test consumer appetites for Chinese-built cars with the S60L, a lengthened S60 sedan built entirely in China. Hopefully the Chinese-built S60L will provide better reliability than my Swedish-built S80 T6.
4th Apr 2015, 17:12
The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Your attempt to invalidate and sweep the dreadful ownership experiences of Volvo S80 owners under the rug because the failures occurred in the past is off-topic and flat wrong. By the same reasoning, any historical event has never occurred.
The P2 platform launched in the 1998 model year S80 spawned the XC90 in 2002 that continued on that platform through 2014 model years. An XC90 being sold as new in April of 2015 is a P2 platform. My comments are factually intact.