Volvo S90 production moves to China as S90 Excellence revealed

Volvo owners Geely are moving production of the Volvo S90 to China, with plans to build all Volvo’s cars there. The Volvo S90 L and Excellence launch too.

It’s really getting difficult to work out exactly what Geely has planned for Volvo.

So far, the plan seemed to be to leave Volvo’s management to get on with rebuilding Volvo as a premium brand that wasn’t German, focussing on Swedish style, lots of safety and a ‘Made in Sweden’ badge. But that’s all starting to change.

First, we had the launch last week of Lynk & Co, a new car brand from Geely which will be delivering ‘connected’ cars using the underpinnings of the soon-to-arrive new Volvo 40 Series car – like the new Volvo XC40 – not just for China, as we’d expected, but for a world market.

That in itself seemed an odd thing to do as it really undermined the ‘Premium’ pitch of Volvo’s cars; why buy a Volvo XC40 when you can have the same car with a different body for less?

The argument could have been that you’d buy the Volvo because it was built in Sweden (well, Sweden or Belgium) to European standards and would therefore be better built and deserving of the ‘Premium’ badge. But not any more.

Volvo has announced it is moving all production of the new S90 to China – shutting European production – and will also move all of the new 60 Series production to a new facility in Chengdu as well as building the new 40 Series cars at a new plant in Luqiao, near Shanghai, alongside the Lynk & Co cars.

That plan will leave Europe with some 90 and 60 Series production in Sweden and some 40 Series production in Belgium (as well as some 60 Series production for the US market in South Carolina). But it will be China which will be the global centre of production for Volvo going forward.

Whether having your Volvo built in China matters or not, the market will decide. But if Volvo sales continue to power forward despite having nothing – bar the name – from Sweden, we can’t see any European production lasting much longer.

Volvo S90 Excellence launched.

As well as the announcement on production, Volvo has revealed the production version of the S90 take on the Excellence theme we saw for the XC90, where the front passenger seat is sacrificed to deliver a luxury experience for just two back seat passengers.

The Excellence is effectively an S90 L (with 120mm in the wheelbase) with all the luxury bits Volvo/Geely can throw at it, including a panoramic roof, work tables, adjustable foot rest, entertainment system, refrigeration, crystal glasses and full touchscreen controls in the back.

Neither the Volvo S90 L or Excellence are likely to make it to the UK when they go on sale in 2017.