Style is in, but safety remains Volvo's core

“Safety is very important to the brand,” says Volvo president and CEO Hakan Samuelsson, outlining the brand's aim to hit annual sales of 800,000 by 2020. “We have to have a premium position in the market. But that premium cannot be based on changing our focus on safety. We should remain very proud of our safety foundation.”

He says that safety was one vital key when it became “inevitable” that Volvo cars will be built in China for the Asia-Pacific market - including Australia - and says the timing could be as short as a decade. But he would not be drawn into which models would be affected.

Mr Samuelsson says that though safety has been very important in sustaining Volvo, ultimately the customer seeks the best product. “Product is the king,” he says. “We have to mix safety with emotion. That’s the reason we are showing our Volvo Concept Coupe. It shows what you can expect from Volvo in the near future. We have to have a strong product and upgrade that product. Then volume will come.”

The VCC, designed in house by Volvo and loosely based on the P1800 coupe of the 1960s, is unlikely to reach production, says Mr Samuelsson. “We have too many other things to concern ourselves with,” he says. One will be ensuring the company is profitable.

It sells about 450,000 cars a year now and has invested heavily in the upcoming Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) that is the new, single-design platform for all future cars. It rolls out late next year in Europe (early 2015 for Australia) with the next XC90 SUV.

Then there is the huge investment in the new engine designs and the factories in Sweden and China to build components. Mr Samuelsson says the way Volvo interacts with its customers will also change. “In Sweden we have a personal technician for the Volvo owner,” he says.

“He’s like the personal doctor who looks after the customer and the car. That could be extended to other parts of the world. In China we have one-hour stops, a service that takes one hour or less. It’s like a barber shop for cars - you stand in line and your car is ready in an hour. That can also be looked at in other markets.” He says these are ideas that create better customer satisfaction and yet don’t require a lot of expense.

Volvo must also increase its sales. “We think 800,000 is achievable,” Mr Samuelsson says, “perhaps even earlier than 2020. Building cars for China, in China, should give us sales of 200,000 a year. Then there is strengthening markets in Europe - which I believe will be on the increase by 2016 and the US.”

Though parent company Geely appears keen to amalgamate Volvo into its own company, there is a lot of resistance from the board of Volvo. Mr Samuelsson says the product relationship between Geely and Volvo is like Skoda is to its sister company, Audi.

“We (Volvo) are Audi and Geely is Skoda,” he says. “There will be some sharing of components - for example, gearbox and suspension parts - but we will remain a no-compromise Volvo product. Geely’s components and the way they are used in the car will make it a distinctly different type of car.” Mr Samuelsson says the fact that similar components are used by Skoda and Audi has not upset Audi’s premium place in the market.