We’re the new owners of the Luqiao plant

Ever since the Luqiao, China plant was inaugurated in 2017, it's been owned by Geely, while we've been supporting on the operational side. We now have an agreement with our parent company and we'll take full ownership of the plant and its manufacturing capacity will be fully available to our Volvo Car Group.

A lot will stay the same after the agreement: the plant will continue to produce the XC40, the fully electric XC40 and the Polestar 2 models; and there'll be no changes in its operations. Changes that will happen include the transfer of all the plant's 2,600 employees, including manufacturing and supporting functions, from Geely Holding to Volvo Cars, as well as a name change.

To be in line with our naming convention for our other plants in China, the Luqiao plant will from now on be referred to as the Taizhou plant, reflecting the name of its home city instead of its home district. Apart from creating a clearer ownership structure within both our Group and Geely, this move boosts our position in China – which is our largest market.

"The transfer of the Taizhou plant is a sound and logical move for both parties, as the plant is now fully dedicated to produce Volvo Car Group's cars," said Javier Varela, head of Engineering and Operations. "It is symbolic that the plant that produced the first unit of our first fully electric car, the Polestar 2, will continue to help us grow in our aim to become a global leader in the premium electric car segment."

Together with Geely, we're always looking at how to improve collaboration and the operational structure within our wider group, and this agreement comes just after another similarly themed agreement during the past summer.

Oskar Falk, Plant Manager in Taizhou, said: "After four successful years producing cars for Volvo, Polestar and Lynk & Co, I'm looking forward to preparing the Taizhou plant for all our future programmes and challenges, now under Volvo Car Group's ownership. We are already well under way in the shift to 100 per cent electric cars, supporting Volvo Cars' long-term strategy."

In July, we agreed with Geely to acquire their stake in our joint ventures in China, which includes the manufacturing plants in Chengdu and Daqing. These transactions are expected to be formally completed in 2023.

With Taizhou now being added to our list of manufacturing plants – already consisting of Charleston, USA; Torslanda, Sweden; and Ghent, Belgium – it means that we'll own all plants producing our cars once the transfer of Chengdu and Daqing goes through.