Car Photo: Ray Ally – Crash Photo: Xinhua News
The will they or wont they story of Geely attempts to buy distressed carmaker Volvo have been dragging on since June. However it now looks like the sale will go ahead early next year.
What I find ironic is that Volvo, the world’s ’safest’ car brand is now destined to be owned by a Chinese company. In a country that consistently has the highest death rate (along with India) for road accidents.
Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd, China’s largest private automaker reportedly will pay US$1.8 billion, which is a lot less that the US$6.45 billion that Ford paid back in 1999. Volvo, the once iconic pride of Sweden, known for its innovation in passenger safety is now heading for some of the unsafest roads in the world.
Last year China officially recorded 73,484 traffic deaths, but a 10% decline from the previous year. This high number is significantly down from a few years back when it was over 100,000 deaths per year. However, other estimates put recent death toll numbers anywhere between 200-300+ people per day.
Volvo founded in Sweden in 1927 on a simple brand idea expressed by Assar Gabrielsson, its managing director and Gustav Larson the technical manager.
“Cars are driven by people. The guiding principal behind everything we make at Volvo, therefore, is and must remain, safety”
Since the earliest days Volvo has owned the word ‘safety’, pioneering many of today’s protective features. Most notably introducing: laminated glass in 1944; the three-point safety belt in 1958; the rear facing child seat in 1964; centrally mounted high stop light in 1986; and side impact protection in 1991. These innovations along with many others, have become benchmark standards for the automotive industry.
It is too early to know what the impact of the sale will have on the Volvo brand and what things will change. However, you don’t need to be a (crash test) dummy to know one thing that must not be changed – Volvo’s ownership of the word ‘safety’. Infact if anything, even more R&D should be invested to make sure the brand regains it position of leadership within the industry.
If any country needs safer cars, safer driving conditions and safer drivers it must be China. So let’s hope some of Volvo’s safety heritage will rub off on the rest of the country and make driving in China a safer experience for everyone.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I was not knowing that Volvo is founded in Sweden..
I wonder how Geely will be able to manage a western company as the culture to us Chinese is very different. Think the mixture of two company cultures could be difficult.