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Volvo's plan for China: sell them on the clean air inside the car

Large Chinese cities aren't known for having clean air. Just this week, the Chinese city of Harbin filled with record levels of smog after starting the city's coal-fired heating system, according to CNN. But Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely, Volvo's parent company, says the automaker's astute attention to cabin comfort in areas such as air filtration is a selling point for the Swedish automaker in China, Forbes reports.
Shufu says when he is inside a Volvo, he feels like he's in Northern Europe, but when the door is opened, he feels like he's in Beijing. The chairman made the remarks at the fourth annual Global Auto Forum (GAF) in China (which also happened to be attended by Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, which was Volvo's owner until 2010), where he emphasized Geely's hands-off approach to managing Volvo, saying, "Geely and Volvo are brothers, not father and son."
While good filtration contributes to cabin comfort, the way we see it, Shufu also is allowing Volvo to play to its most well-known strength: safety. Smog protection via air filtration might not seem like the most important safety feature for a car in the US (unless you live in Los Angeles), but when you consider that Harbin's level of fine particles was up to 30 times higher than the World Health Organization's recommended standard on Tuesday, we'd think twice about that. Fine particles, which are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less, are considered to be the most harmful to health.

Volvo XC40 delayed because it's too big for its own good?

As fuel prices rise and greenhouse gases poke holes in the ozone, big, gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles are becoming less popular as smaller, cleaner vehicles, such as crossovers, gain market share. Volvo is late to the small crossover party, though it wants to build the XC40 crossover to compete with the Land Rover Evoque. The only problem with that, Autocar reports, is that a suitable (read: small enough) platform for it is up to five years away, despite a hopeful photos of it in testing guise.
Volvo is currently developing a new platform, called SPA (Scaleable Platform Architecture), to underpin its next-generation of vehicles, such as the 2014 XC60 pictured above and the S60 sedan, which is likely the smallest vehicle that would be able to use the new platform. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be a quick fix for the gaping hole in Volvo's lineup, and Geely, the Chinese budget car manufacturer that owns Volvo, is reportedly preparing to launch a mid-market brand that may or may not be sold outside of China.
Can't Swedish car manufacturers catch a break?

Volvo V40 Cross Country gets the all-wheel drive it deserves

Want a rugged Volvo wagon? Gothenburg has two kinds to offer: there's the XC crossovers on the one hand and ruggedized wagons on the other. As we reported last month from the unveiling of the new XC90 in Sweden, Volvo plans on offering more Cross Country wagons in the future. But in the meantime, it has upgraded the existing V40 Cross Country with some key enhancements - not the least of which is the long-awaited addition of all-wheel drive.
Powertrain upgrades for Volvo's smallest soft-roader include the new T5 engine (a 1.7-liter turbo four producing 245 horsepower), an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. The new powertrain is not only more capable, but also more environmentally friendly than the old T5 it replaces.
The enhanced V40 Cross Country launches in Europe mid-fall before being rolled out in other markets in the following months, but unfortunately the United States is not among them as the V40 is not offered Stateside in any configuration, which is a shame.