Volvo to develop platform with Geely

After a failed attempt to source a small car platform from a rival automaker, Volvo has confirmed it will develop its own platform together with its Chinese parent Geely, which plans to use the platform for its own range of small cars.

The two firms announced today they will form a new R&D centre in Volvo’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden, which will be responsible for developing the new small car platform.

The R&D centre will employ approximately 200 engineers from Sweden and China and will be fully operational by the end of the year.

Few details are known about Volvo’s new small car platform, though we can confirm it will be a modular design similar to the Scalable Platform Architecture (SPA) that will underpin every new Volvo sized from about the S60 up.

The first model to be based on the SPA platform will be the 2015 Volvo XC90 due at the end of next year. Though costly in the initial phase, the benefits of developing one’s own platform are many. Importantly, Volvo will not have to compromise in a way that is inevitable when partnering with an outside firm.

In addition, by utilising modular designs for its two new platforms (SPA and new small car), Volvo will be able to eventually realise huge cost savings in terms of development, testing and sourcing when coming up with multiple models spawned from the common architectures.

You may be wondering why Volvo needs to develop a new small car platform when it has just launched two new small cars, the stylish V40 and its V40 Cross Country variant. These models are based on an aging, albeit updated, platform shared with the C30 and originally sourced from former parent Ford.

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