Briefing
Made in America
The news: Volvo’s top US executive, Luis Rezende, said that Volvo Cars will boost its electric vehicle manufacturing plans at its plant in South Carolina, bucking an industry trend to halt US production of EVs.
The context: Speaking to The Information, Rezende, Americas president for the carmaker, said that Volvo will release a new hybrid designed for the US market and will commence production of its midsize plug-in XC60 SUV in its Ridgeville South Carolina facility, which already produces the fully electric XC90 midsize SUV.
The hybrid will be produced in late 2029 or early 2030 with plans to gradually increase production of components for the cars in the US.
“If you want to stay in the U.S., the level of localization of our products needs to increase tremendously,” Rezende said. “The industry is going in this direction and we will be doing the same because it’s just not working properly if we source from different continents.”
The plant currently produces 22,000 of the brand’s XC90s, half of which are shipped abroad, but has the capacity to produce 150,000 vehicles.
Building Volvos in the US would help the carmaker avoid tariffs as cars imported from Sweden and other EU countries will be subject to a 15% levy, down from 27.%, under an agreement with the United States announced in August.
Hakan Samuelsson, the chief executive of Volvo Cars told the NYT that “The tariffs have accelerated this process, it would be fair to admit that. But it’s not only the tariffs.”
Volvo, which is based in Sweden, was bought by the Chinese Geely Group in 2010. Volvo and Polestar (another Geely company) are virtually the only Chinese car brands available to buy in the States, largely thanks to a Biden-era 100% tariff on Chinese made cars.
Trump has repeatedly encouraged Chinese carmakers to manufacture cars in the US and some analysts suggest that a more formal offer could emerge on the topic.
Mercedes-Benz halted production of its electric EQE and EQS cars in Alabama in July, Honda cancelled plans to build an electric SUV in Ohio and Ford killed plans to build a planned three-row electric SUV in August.
The sources: The Information, The NYT
By Paige McNamee
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