Volvo Cars has announced that production of its S90 sedan is set to be moved from Europe to China, with the Swedish automaker saying it planned to make China its “global manufacturing and export hub”.
The S90, which is based on the brand’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), will be produced at its plant in Daqing, Heilongjiang province, in northern China.
The Geely-owned automaker furthermore revealed that “existing and future” 60-series medium-sized SPA-based cars will be built at its plant in Chengdu, Szechuan province, in Western China, while its planned 40-series smaller cars, based on its Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), will be made at a plant that is currently being built in Luqiao, 350 km south of Shanghai.
This Luqiao plant, which is owned by Zhejiang Geely Holdings but will be operated by Volvo Cars, will also build CMA-based cars for Lynk & Co, the new car brand launched last month by Geely.
So, what happens to the brand’s two factories in Europe? Well, the Swedish plant in Gothenburg will continue to make other 90 series and 60 series SPA-based vehicles, while the plant in Ghent, Belgium, will in future be a CMA-only production facility making new 40 series cars.
Volvo is also building a new plant in South Carolina in the US that will also make SPA-based vehicles for domestic US consumption and for export.
The new S90, which we’ve already driven in Spain, is due to launch in South Africa in early 2017, although local pricing has already been announced.
