China’s Geely takes aim at North American market with Volvo-derived vehicles

By John LeBlanc After almost a decade of false starts and broken promises, China’s Geely, the holding company that also owns Volvo, says it plans on exporting Chinese-made cars to North America in 2016. As you may remember, at  the 2006 Detroit auto show, Geely garnered plenty of attention by announcing that it would enter the U.S. market within a few years. However, realising its vehicles at the time simply couldn’t meet Western safety and emissions standards, let alone the expectations of European and North American buyers, Geelys have never been sold in North America. But by using Volvo-derived vehicles, Geely seems better equipped than ever to be the first legitimate Chinese automaker to enter the lucrative North American market. "Our acquisition of Volvo enhanced our image and overseas consumers are seeing us as an international company," said Gui Shengyue, CEO of Geely. "Our deliveries in U.S. and Europe will be banking on those jointly developed models." While Volvo will start rolling out all-new powertrains and platforms starting next year, first with a new XC90 crossover, Geely will take existing Volvo technology and repackage it as their own vehicles. A good example is the Geely MC Concept from this year’s Shanghai auto show, seen above. It’s a sedan concept based on the existing Volvo S80 four-door, first seen in 1999, and obvious compliant with current Western standards. While Geely has targeted 2016 as the date to start selling cars in the U.S. (no word yet if Canada is included in those plans), the Chinese automaker is already a big exporter. Geely says it sold 100,800 vehicles outside of China last year, but is aiming for 180,000 by the end of 2013.And by 2018, Geely wants to have as much as 60 per cent of its sales coming from markets other than China. While Japan's Honda sells its Chinese-made Fit in Canada, Geely would be the first Chinese brand to try and sells cars in the North America. Which begs the question: Would you buy a Chinese branded car? Even knowing its Western engineering roots? Source: Automotive News

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