Chinese-Built Cars Coming to the U.S.

Volvo cars have been around since 1927 and they have always been regarded as a quality-made product of Sweden. The main company is still there, but they sold the car division to Ford back in 1999. Ford had some financial difficulties in the mid-late 2000's (along with everybody else) and in 2010 they sold Volvo to Geely, one of China's largest car manufacturers. Now they're making Chinese-built Volvos, and in 2015 they plan to export a brand new Chinese-made sedan, the S60L, to the U.S.

To date, there haven't been Chinese-built cars in the U.S. If Volvo manages to convince buyers that its cars built in China are just as good as those currently built in Europe, it will save on production costs and help buffer against exchange rate fluctuations. The reason is that the dollar and the Chinese yuan have, historically, had a more stable relationship than the euro and the dollar.

Volvo has two plants in China and they should be able to achieve full capacity of about 250,000 vehicles a year by about 2018. However, the ultimate question is whether consumers in the U.S. will be able to tell the difference between Chinese-built cars and European-built cars. It seems we shall soon see if they can, thanks to Volvo.