Fredrik Arp, currently President and CEO of Trelleborg AB, has been appointed new President and CEO at Volvo Car Corporation effective October 1, 2005.

Welcoming Fredrik Arp to his new position, Ford Motor Company's Executive Vice President, Premier Automotive Group and Ford of Europe, Mark Fields said: “Volvo Cars has a strong business and a great brand, Fredrik Arp's challenge is to lead the further growth of the Volvo business. Fredrik has an impressive track record in sales and manufacturing and I am delighted he has agreed to accept this challenge. I look forward to welcoming him to Volvo and to Ford Motor Company.”

Fredrik Arp, who will report to Mark Fields, has a long experience of Swedish industry, including Swedish Match and PLM (Rexam). He has held several management positions at Trelleborg AB since 1985 and has been President and CEO of Trelleborg AB since 1999.

“Volvo is a name that stands for Swedish excellence around the world,” Arp said. “This is a great opportunity for me to drive and support the profitable growth of Volvo Car Corporation. I am looking forward to working alongside such a successful team, in one of the toughest and most competitive industries in the world, and to lead them in the future development of the company.”

After 39 years with Volvo and five years as President and CEO at Volvo Cars, Hans-Olov Olsson will become Chairman of the Board of Volvo Car Corporation with effect from October 1, 2005.

Mark Fields said: “Hans-Olov's contribution to Volvo Cars over the years and around the globe is immeasurable. He has helped steer the company with a unique combination of charm, vision and steely determination to the position it is in today, which is stronger than at any other time since the company's foundation in 1927. His continued support as Chairman of the Board will be invaluable as we move forward to the company's next challenges.”

“Volvo is a fantastic company to work for – I should know I've been here almost four decades. I wish Fredrik and the team every success in the future; I have every confidence that we at Volvo have the team and the plans in place to continue to grow the company succesfully,” says Hans-Olov Olsson.

Volvo Car Corporation is a division of Ford Motor Company and brings 27,500 employess with its major manufacturing activities in Sweden and Belgium. Volvo Cars sold some 456,000 cars in 2004.

DETROIT -- Volvo Cars of North America Inc. will be a chief sponsor of the global Live 8 concert on Saturday. Organizers say they intend the concert to raise public awareness of ways to end poverty in poor nations.

Volvo will air six commercials during ABC-TV's two-hour telecast of the concert. Volvo's logo will appear at the sites of each of the concert's nine cities: Philadelphia; London; Paris; Rome; Berlin; Tokyo; Johannesburg, South Africa; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Toronto.

The company will provide transportation for performers in Philadelphia and London. Volvo also will sponsor the DVD release of the Live 8 concert film, scheduled for November.

The concert broadcast on TV or online is expected to attract 2 billion people.

"Each day, more than 50,000 people die of poverty," says Hans-Olov Olsson, CEO of Volvo Car Co. "Our Live 8 sponsorship is one more way for us to show and tell our commitment to improving the quality of life for people across the world."

Bob Geldof, who founded Live Aid in 1985, is organizing the concert. Geldof and other advocates are calling on the G8 group of the world's largest industrial nations, including the United States, "to drop the debts owed to them by the world's 18 poorest countries and to significantly increase the aid provided to those countries."

Scheduled Live 8 performers include Paul McCartney, U2, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Annie Lennox, Sting, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, the Dave Matthews Band, Joss Stone, REM and Coldplay.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -- Carmaker Volvo has asked for special exemption from Sweden's tough drink-driving laws so its test drivers can have a glass too many to test new safety systems that warn if a driver is not reacting to danger.

Volvo, whose success rests on its reputation for building safety-conscious family cars, will only let its drunk drivers take the wheel on its own test tracks near the west-coast city of Gothenburg if it gets permission from the Swedish government.

"It's a matter of developing technical systems that warn if the driver isn't reacting properly," said Christer Gustafsson, spokesman for Volvo Cars, which is owned by Ford Motor Co.

"That means if the driver is tired, sick, drunk or under the influence of other drugs. We want to do this in a controlled environment in Sweden," he told Swedish news agency TT.

The new safety system is still at the development stage and Gustafsson said he could not give more details about how it works. "It's all about preventing accidents," he said.

Sweden has one of the best road-safety records in the world thanks partly to drink-driving laws which are among the toughest in Europe. The laws apply to private and public roads.

Stockholm County Traffic Police said the most drivers could drink without risking a heavy fine is one beer, while drivers caught well over the limit can be sent to prison.

Ford lowered the value of its Volvo brand by $2.4 billion today. The value reduction came after an evaluation of the Swedish brand, but Ford failed to mention the current value of the brand. Ford denies the announcement was part of a plan to ready Volvo for sale, despite recent rumors.

Instead, the U.S. automaker says it lowered the value of Volvo because it expects the brand to sell fewer vehicles in the coming years. Ford has already announced that first quarter Volvo production will be reduced by 23,000 units — totaling 112,000 vehicles.

A poor exchange rate is also being blamed for Volvo's expected sales slump. "It is a result of the poorer than planned performance of Volvo reflecting the exchange rates and sales decline in the US and discounts," Ford's Chief Financial Officer, Don Leclair, told Automotive News.

Despite the unfavorable exchange rate, Ford says it has no plans to build Volvo cars in the U.S.

Volvo is one of three brands that makes up Ford's Premier Automotive Group — the other two being Jaguar and Land Rover. Ford is in the process of selling its Jaguar and Land Rover brands, but denies any intents to sell Volvo.

Volvo is about to make a dramatic shift in the way it markets its cars. In an effort to direct advertising dollars where they are most effective, at least according to Volvo’s marketing department, the Swedish automaker will stop turning up to most auto shows around the globe and instead build up its presence online.

Volvo is boosting its marketing budget but will spend more on developing new online marketing channels, as well as sprucing up its global network of dealers to turn them into ‘brand centers’ to emphasize its Scandinavian roots, something that will become vital as the automaker builds more cars in China, a country whose government owns a 37 percent stake in Volvo (the rest is mostly owned by Chinese automaker Geely).

The new strategy is called the Volvo Way to Market, and it will see Volvo focus in four key areas: marketing tools, online presence, dealers and service. Unfortunately for fans, it means a drastic reduction in the number of auto show appearances. Volvo has confirmed it will attend just three shows per year: the Detroit Auto Show, the Geneva Motor Show and the alternating Shanghai and Beijing events. In addition to three shows, Volvo says it will host its own event to showcase its products brand, similar to what’s done in the tech industry.

As for its online presence, Volvo says it will start to sell online gradually across the globe. The U.S. may be one of the later markets to fully embrace online sales of Volvo vehicles because of the dealership model here, but progress can be made in this area as demonstrated by Tesla and its own online sales model. Dealers will still be there for the delivery and servicing of vehicles as well as organizing test drives and real world inspections that you can’t replicate on the web. A first step in digital commerce was taken with the online-only sale of 1,927 special launch edition XC90s.

For the dealers, Volvo will attempt to have most of them styled in a similar way, to further project the brand. Inside, customers will be able to have a drink in Sweden-produced glasses and there will be Swedish cuisine also on offer along with some Swedish-themed sight and sound elements.

The final leg of the Volvo Way to Market is a new level of service, which will include the assignment of a personal technician for each customer. When first picking up a vehicle, the customer will be introduced to the technician who will take care of them and the car throughout the ownership. Volvo says a number of dealers have already started the service on a trial basis and customer satisfaction has improved. By 2018, Volvo expects its of its dealers to be offering this service as standard.

Volvo is now offering a special lifetime parts and labor warranty, effective as long as the service work is done at one of the automaker’s dealerships. Offered only in the United States at present, the special warranty means Volvo owners here can expect to “pay once and never pay again” for replacement parts and labor, excluding accessories and wear items, for as long as they own their car.

The special warranty is part of Volvo’s Service Advantage program, which also provides free software updates, complimentary diagnostics, personal service, alternative transportation and complimentary car washes. And it’s open to existing owners of Volvo cars.

The launch of the special warranty is one of the steps Volvo is taking to help reposition itself as a premium brand in the eyes of shoppers. It’s also a sign of the confidence Volvo has in the quality of its work.

“We look forward to redefining the way manufacturers service and support their vehicles” customer service chief of Volvo Cars of North America Scott Doering said in a statement. “The lifetime parts and labor warranty is a best in class offer from a luxury automaker.”

If you keep your eye on what Volvo has been up to in recent years, you’ll have seen a few high performance cars appear carrying the Polestar name. Polestar is a Swedish performance company that specialised in tweaking Volvos, and the companies has worked very closely together since they first hooked up in motorsport back in 1996.

Now Volvo has made that close partnership permanent, by buying Polestar Performance and setting the scene for future performance models in the mould of Mercedes‘ AMG or BMW’s M. Volvo has confirmed that all its high performance models will carry the Polestar name, and hinted that we’ll see some performance hybrid models coming soon.

Volvo has gone big on hybrids in recent years, calling it “twin-engine electrification technology”, and Polestar is expected to take the technology currently found in cars like the XC90 and refine it for more sporty offerings.

The deal does not cover Polestar‘s racing division, but it does include the aftermarket division, so expect to see Volvo produce official Polestar kits for existing cars. The Polestar racing team will be renamed.

Currently, Volvo sells Polestar versions of the V60 wagon and the S60 saloon across the world, and expects to shift 750 this year. With the new acquisition, that will grow to between 1000 and 1500 Polestar cars per year.

Volvo made it clear back in June that its Care by Volvo subscription service was going to be a big hit. Now, it's got the stats to back it up: in just four months the company has sold as many subscriptions as it originally anticipated selling in the scheme's first year. And if you want in on the $650 a month deal for the XC40, you'll probably be waiting until next for your vehicle to be delivered. It'll be a challenge getting hold of it via traditional means, too, as Volvo has pinched the supply of XC40s going to dealerships.

The subscription service originally launched at $600 per month, which includes the $35,000 XC40 T5 Momentum, maintenance, 24/7 concierge, insurance and roadside assistance. Clearly the extra $50 hasn't put customers off, with the 2019 S60 T6 R-Design sedan also being offered under the scheme, for $850. No doubt it's proved popular because of its affordability. Volvo's impressive take-up figures come hot on the heels of Cadillac's plans to suspend its own subscription service just a year after launching it -- the major difference, however, was that Cadillac's programme came with a much heftier $1,800 per month price tag.

The California New Car Dealers Association is requesting that Volvo immediately end its Care by Volvo subscription service within the state. According to the group, the automaker is in violation of California’s franchise and consumer protection laws.

It’s been a long time coming, as Care by Volvo is clearly designed to minimize dealer interactions. Anders Gustafsson, CEO of Volvo Cars of North America, even said the program claimed as much as 15 percent of the XC40 crossovers intended for dealerships this year.

“It’s really the same concerns from everybody, and it’s just that they don’t feel secure,” Gustafsson of said dealers last month. “They’re afraid we’re going to take something away from them … I would say the biggest question mark around subscriptions is that consumers need to decide that. Our retailers are asking, ‘Please let us be involved, because we can help.'”

It looks like they’re tired of begging.

According to Automotive News, Mr. Gustafsson received a letter on November 30th from Brian Maas, president of the California association, who accused Volvo of “directly competing” with its dealerships. It also alleges that Volvo illegally modified its franchise agreements and that the variability of pricing vehicles through Care by Volvo may “constitute illegal payment packing.”

Care by Volvo, which launched late in 2017 for only the XC40, is a two-year subscription service via a proprietary app. Access to the vehicle, insurance, and maintenance is included in one monthly payment that ranges from $650 to $850, depending on the chosen vehicle. Subscribers become eligible to swap to a different vehicle after 12 months. While we’ve complained about the ludicrous premium you pay for such services, Volvo’s is actually on the more modest end of the spectrum in terms of overall expense.

“Care by Volvo has proven popular with consumers and has attracted new customers to the Volvo brand,” the company responded in a statement. “Volvo Car USA has always had an open and honest dialogue with its retail partners about Care by Volvo and has recently completed a 12-month anniversary review of the program. An updated version of Care by Volvo (2.0) was recently reviewed with the Volvo Retailer Advisory Board and the feedback was positive and in favor of the changes.”

Maas confirmed that the California New Car Dealers Association has met with Gustafsson and exchanged several letters with Volvo about the program and dealer concerns. However, he also said the automaker unsatisfactorily answered the association’s legal questions.

According to his letter, the dealer group sees the subscription service as a lease where the monthly fee is set, regardless of the actual cost to provide insurance to a customer. Maas said it was unfair to charge a low-risk motorist the same as a customer who is more costly to insure.

“For such a customer, Volvo manipulates the cost of the vehicle to ensure that customer’s monthly payment equals the amount promised by the [Care by Volvo] program,” Maas wrote. “California law expressly prohibits dealers from ‘packing’ the cost of insurance into the monthly lease payment. As such, [Care] exposes Volvo dealers to liability under this (and other) consumer protection statutes.”

Sign-up for Care by Volvo happens online or through the Volvo app and a Volvo concierge coordinates with a local dealer for vehicle delivery. Dealers receive a payment for each Volvo subscription they handle, Maas said.

“In light of the understandable concerns of our Volvo dealer members, we ask that you immediately suspend the [Care by Volvo] program in California and work with your dealer partners to design a subscription program that strengthens your relationship with dealers and complies with California law,” Maas wrote in the letter.

Essentially, stores want Volvo to redesign the program to work more closely with dealers. These kinds of subscription models essentially squash the ability for dealer markups while allowing factories to make some side cash via a more direct relationship with the customer. That results in dealerships becoming little more than pickup and drop-off points for subscription vehicles.

Even super stylish Swedish cars obsessed with safety get recalled once in a while. If you drive a four-cylinder diesel Volvo that was produced within the last five years, then listen up. There’s a global recall over some faulty parts that could lead to a fire.

Volvo is recalling 507,000 cars globally because of an allegedly faulty engine component that might cause a fire in a worst-case scenario, according to Bloomberg

A Volvo spokesperson elaborated to the outlet:

The affected cars include model year 2014 through 2019 S60s, S80s, S90s, V40s, V60s, V70s, V90s, XC60s and XC90s with the two-liter, four-cylinder diesel engine. Volvo told Bloomberg that there have been no accidents or injuries reported, thankfully. Customers can get their cars repaired at no cost at their local Volvo dealers.

Look, I know I’m writing for mostly an American audience, so news of a diesel engine recall affects precisely zero of you, as diesel Volvos aren’t sold here in North America. But we aren’t the only ones in the world buying Volvos, and half a million cars is a lot of cars.

Those of you with the diesel Volvos, please go and get your cars checked. Fires are bad!

Update July 23, 2019 6:06 p.m. EST: A Volvo USA spokesperson reached out to clarify, “The recall action does not impact customers in the United States or Canada.”

Volvo Car Corp. and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. said Wednesday that they would combine their engine and transmissions business but backed away from a full-blown merger of the Chinese and Swedish companies that are owned by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu.

The move highlights a trend, increasingly favored by investors, for companies to sharpen their focus rather than become entangled in larger conglomerates that often dilute the value of their constituent businesses.

The agreement leaves the two auto makers as stand-alone entities under the umbrella of Mr. Li’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. It allows Geely Auto to move forward with plans to raise the equivalent of nearly $3 billion through a share listing on Shanghai’s STAR Market for growth stocks. The decision also renews speculation that Volvo could seek an independent stock-market listing.

The two companies said last year that they were holding talks that could lead to combining their businesses. In the end, they said they feared that a merger would present integration issues and distract them during a period of industrywide transformation in the shift to electric vehicles.

“A full merger would be too much internal focus and organizational disputes and power plays,” Volvo Chief Executive Officer Håkan Samuelsson said in an interview. “I think that’s number one, to really maintain full focus on growth, especially since we have been growing a lot on the Geely and the Volvo side and don’t want to jeopardize anything there.”

Mr. Samuelsson said that the companies realized during the past year’s discussions that the bulk of savings they could achieve together would come from sharing software, rather than conventional savings from using common hardware components such as chassis and powertrains.

“The top-line growth, and that synergies in the future should be more focused on software, is a new thing that we learned during this process,” he said.

The preference for deep cooperation over a full merger also highlights a growing trend favored by investors, who have been pushing large automotive companies to spin off individual businesses. Daimler AG , for example, decided last month to split its luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz and its Daimler Truck business into separate companies, a move that investors cheered. An Conghui, president and CEO of Geely Auto, raised the matter during a news conference, saying that a merger would dilute the value of the individual companies in the eyes of investors and said that concern was one reason Volvo and Geely opted not to combine.

Mr. Samuelsson, addressing speculation about whether Volvo would now seek its own listing, said no decision had been made but it remained an option.

“For Volvo to have a very bold agenda to electrify and develop autonomous driving is not credible internally or externally if we would not have the ability to approach the equity market to finance this,” he said. “The possibility is definitely there, now that we have proclaimed to be a stand-alone company.”

The collaboration with Geely will see the companies combine their powertrain operations into a new stand-alone provider of internal combustion engines, transmissions and next-generation, dual-motor hybrid systems for use by both companies as well as other manufacturers.

The agreement will also see Volvo and Geely expand the use of shared modular systems for electric vehicles, enhance their collaboration in autonomous and electric drive technologies and combine for joint procurement to cut purchasing costs.

Both companies will retain independent corporate structures, but the collaboration will be overseen by a new governance model supported by Geely Holding, the lead shareholder in both companies.

Chinese-Swedish auto maker Lynk & Co., owned by Geely Auto, will expand globally by using Volvo’s distribution and service network, they added.