A report from Reuters officially confirmed an $800 (€590 or £495) million loan that the China Development Bank awarded to Volvo. It’s not the first one they’ve taken out of the PRC, and this one’s amortization plan has been stretched up until the year 2021, by which time the Swedish manufacturer will have doubled its global sales figure to 800,000 units sold annually, if things go according to plan.
The money was justified as going into financing the creation of new models that may in fact, be aimed at ensuring Volvo a bigger slice of the growing Chinese market. It happens to be their top market too, according to data gathered over the last two months.
Whatever they do with the money, the fact of the matter is we’re still expecting the all-new XC90 that will finally replace the 11 year-old model we have now to arrive next year.
It’s the first production model to use Volvo’s new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), and it will be followed by the replacement for the equally old S80 sedan which we expect will be a keen seller in China too – it’s the next series model they will reveal after the SUV/crossover.
By Andrei Nedelea
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