Volvo has accelerated the transfer of the EX30 from China to Europe
- The Swedish carmaker Volvo (a subsidiary of the Chinese group Geely) has brought forward the date for the transfer of production of its compact SUV EX30 (B segment) from China to Europe (for models marketed in Europe) since it began production of the EX30 at the Belgian site in Ghent on April 25, 2025, whereas it had initially planned to begin production in September 2025 (see Auto Analyse 2024-20 of September 25, 2024).
- Volvo has accelerated the process because the EX30 sold very well in Europe last year, with sales reaching 69,000 units, which is a large volume for a model from China. The second reason for this acceleration is the recent implementation of European additional tariffs on vehicles imported from China, which has caused EX30 sales in Europe to plunge in 2025, to 19,000 units over five months (a rate of 45,000 sales over the whole year).
- Meanwhile, Volvo announced it would move production of a model from Gothenburg to its U.S. plant in Ridgeville. (South Carolina). Currently, this plant is largely underutilized (16,000 cars produced in 2024 for 150,000 capacity) and the plan to tax cars imported from Europe on American soil has convinced the Swedish carmaker to redistribute its global car production differently. The model that is most likely to be transferred from Sweden to the United States will be either the XC60 SUV or the XC90 , Volvo's two best-selling models in the United States. In 2024, 39,000 XC60s were sold (compared to 39,700 in 2023) and 39,500 XC90s (compared to 40,000 in 2023).