Geely to start selling Volvo co-developed vehicles
The Chinese car maker Geely will be starting to sell vehicles co-developed with Volvo from 2015, after purchasing Volvo from Ford, back in 2010.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Geely CEO – Gui Sheng Yue – said that the manufacturer has already moved into the research and development stage of their partnership and that they believe that a new product can be ready after the coming year.
Even if the joint development with Volvo is aimed at increasing the Chinese marque’s image to help it achieve the goal of becoming their country’s largest auto exporter, it is yet unknown what the overall and end impact of the relationship with Volvo will be.
Back in 2010, the Hangzhou-based company’s vice president for international operations Freeman Shen said that they have to be careful not to damage the Volvo brand as a result of the takeover, because in his words they “don’t want the image of a luxury car made in a third world country”. They wish to maintain the image of a European luxury car, even if it’s owned by a Chinese company.
This is a rather clear sign of their future expectations for the Chinese market, because competitive pressure on domestic brands in the Chinese market should increase considerably in the coming years as most major international brands are starting to strengthen their presence within the country.
The report has also said that it’s preparing to introduce a series of ‘new-energy’ vehicles over the next year in order to cater for an expected increase in demand.
This developmental partnership between Geely and Volvo is a progression of a memorandum signed between the two in March last year, thus opening the door to developing vehicles with ‘full access’ to technology.
The global sales from Geely have increased 19 percent in the first six months of 2013.
