What’s the best selling premium make C segment SUV in Europe? A BMW. And what’s number two? Hint: it’s neither a Mercedes nor an Audi. The Volvo XC40 is not only ahead of the GLA-Class and Q3, it’s closing the gap to the market leading X1 too.
Some of us wondered if it was PR spin when Volvo said it would stop producing the V40 at Ghent in an effort to help the Belgian plant keep up with orders for the admitedly very successful XC40. The five-door hatchback *was an old model but the car was still popular and it remains an odd decision to exit the segment, even if this is a temporary move: a C segment crossover/hatchback is due out in 2021. Now, we hear that a model with the code of V317 may join the XC40 on the line at Ghent. Will it be the rumoured ‘XC50’, a coupe-crossover? Let’s see what next year brings.
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*Production of the V40 and V40 Cross Country ended in July but they remain available in many countries
Rainbows on roses and flannel on door trims
Having recently spent a week with Volvo’s smallest SUV I see why just-auto colleagues deem it to be one of the best vehicles in the class. Innovative features such as what looks and feels like hard-wearing grey flannel adorned the door panels of the press tester, making me wonder why no other car to my knowledge has featured this rather than the usual hard/soft plastics. Tactile people will be unable to stop themselves touching it, and what might be the same material flows up from the floor and covers the sides of the central console between the front seats.
Latin for I Roll
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By GlobalDataThe huge door bins are a revolution for Volvo too, at least they will be for those who own a V40 or V40 CC. There was clearly a directive to the interiors team for way more stowage space and the remit was listened to: the cubby under the central armrest is astonishingly deep and long. There’s even a little bin on the end of it. Just ahead of this is the gear selection lever and I struggled with this for the first few drives. You must pause in position N between P and D, or P and R. Why though? The two presses can make for maddeningly slow three point turns until you remember that one push on the lever puts you into neutral and leaves you there. Then the car starts rolling and the engine revs away. Cue a heart-stopping moment where the brake pedal is stabbed. I’m not a fan of Volvo’s everything-on-a-touchscreen philosophy but shall not repeat my reservations here, other than to say, the gear lever thing can be just as dangerous as the no-choice-but-to-take-your-eyes-off-the-road screen swiping (I tire of voice command systems that need me to change my accent or even having to interrupt the music to state commands).
Adoring the whoosh
Let’s have some balance in this review though as the transmission selector ended up not being an issue after I got used to it, and some people love the Tesla-esque approach to almost all controls. Me, I found something especially endearing and I also soon got addicted to it, keeping the windows down on every drive it was so pleasing. Not the exhaust note, which in the three-cylinder 1.5-litre (petrol) engine is nice enough but nothing special. No, it’s turbocharger whoosh. Unlike the old days or even the contemporary when it comes to some trucks, it’s not a near-whistle; more a gentle whir and not without much appeal to some of us. Let’s hope that in a world of ever more bland and often too-quiet cars, this engine is allowed to remain distinctive.
Pushing past big bro XC90
I recommend a read of both Graeme and Matthew‘s assessments of the XC40, and there will be no repetition of their findings here. Instead, I want to explore how this additional vehicle is proving to be a driver of ever higher sales for the brand. Not everywhere, mind, as its segment isn’t a major one in the giant Chinese and US markets. There, the XC60 rules and in the latter of the two countries, the XC90 remains strong too, even as the fifth year of manufacture draws closer for the second generation model.
Europe-wide, the smallest of VCC’s SUVs has tapped into a feeling that perhaps other premium brands’ models look much like one another. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it might be why Jaguar can’t seem to lift sales of the E-Pace and F-Pace much beyond where they appear to have become stuck. Audi’s Q2, Q3 and Q5 are more popular yet even they aren’t stellar performers.
Left-field looks: what people seem to want
Jeep is a premium make in many countries, which means that the Renegade is the segment’s number one model in the Italian market, thumping the Audi Q2, proving it’s possible for non-German posh brands to break through. Which makes what Volvo has been doing with the quiet expansion and refinement of its line-up especially fascinating – the XC40 looks like no other Volvo and indeed, no other vehicle, as the image above illustrates. The very unusual D-pillar treatment must be highly appealing to others, not just me, as if it wasn’t sales would be poor.
Add a model which stands out for the right reasons and suddenly a challenger brand can become a formidable force. This, in a size class where the incumbents are offering what can appear to be scaled down versions of the bigger, see-them-everywhere alternatives. Perhaps that’s what has happened in the C-premium SUV segment of the European market. Which likely means that Volvo could be on to something.
Sales up by 109 per cent
For the year to the end of August, VCC’s own data state that XC40 sales worldwide hit 82,262 units, a rise of 109%. That’s not a skewed statistic either: this model has been in production since November 2017 so it’s a genuinely dramatic gain, year-on-year. The XC90 is holding steady, having had a 1.2% rise over the first eight months, sales being 62,665 vehicles. Way ahead of both is the XC60, deliveries rising by 12% in August to 14,969. From 1 January to 31 August, 126,912 were delivered, a gain of 9%.
Fifty thousand Volvos a month
One day soon, Volvo could get to consistent monthly deliveries of 50,000 vehicles. Just pause and absorb that statement. Modest, formerly not-too-ambitious Volvo. Last month, sales reached 47,796 cars, as the US, China and Europe all reported rises in volume. The company has been working towards a goal of selling 800,000 vehicles in one calendar year and it might get there in 2020. Thus far, the tally for 2019 is 443,168 cars, up 8% compared with the same period last year and yet another fresh record. Britain remains a strong part of these numbers too, Volvo having grown by 31% this year, while in July, China was up by 32% (no official stats for August by make and model yet).
Closing in on Caddy
Even with its ongoing surge, the brand remains a long, long way behind the Big Three German premium makes in China, let us be clear. But during the most recent month for which data is available, Volvo (10,780, YtD 66,527) closed the gap to Cadillac (11,586 and Ytd 137,169) which held on to 25th position. Those numbers are retail sales of locally-built vehicles for July and 1 Jan-31 Jul.
Geely takes a tumble
If it’s all looking terrific for the Swedish marque, then what a contrast this is to an acceleration of the parent company’s reversal of fortune. The Geely brand kept smashing records last year but then the music slowed and slowed. In July, things only got worse, retail volume collapsed by 30% to 67,463 and year-to-date volume fell to 660,037 units. Geely remains in fifth place behind Nissan (644,760) but sixth position is surely imminent with the Japanese brand having outsold the Chinese one by 25,366 cars in July (the Nissan Sylphy is in enormous demand, topping the sales charts ahead of the VW Lavida and Toyota Corolla).
Weak(ish) Lynk
Just as dramatic as the fall of Geely the brand has been Lynk & Co. The awful thing for Zhejiang Geely is that all of this is happening following a policy of massive investments in ever newer and ever more models for all of its divisions. Lynk at least brought the YoY tumble down to 14% in July, selling 7,094 cars. On a much happier note, the enormous gains made earlier in 2019 have been enough to see the brand ending July with 68,595 vehicles delivered over the first seven months, which is a rise of 48% and a climb up the brand rankings to 32 (from 39 as at 31 July 2018). There are quite a few additional crossovers on the way for Lynk so even with the delay to the brand’s launch in selected US and EU cities, next year could well be a great one if the Chinese market returns to strong expansionary mode.
The sum-up
Volvo will have become the apple of Li Shufu’s eye this year. His visionary purchase of Volvo Car Group and subsequent, ongoing funding of new models has proved to be a winning strategy. That, and the really clever thing he did, which was to make staff feel valued, and trust that the company’s leaders would make the right decisions with all his cash. So far, it seems to be working. There have been a few, shall we say, unusual decisions, such as putting the S60 into the US plant rather than an SUV. Any SUV. That car, as good as it apparently is, has not yet proved to be hugely in demand in any market (only 2,010 sold worldwide in August) although it’s on the up month by month at least.
Overall, Volvo is getting almost all the basics right and Mercedes, Audi and BMW should not be sniffy about its chances of giving them a real run for their money in terms of volumes and profits in the 2020s.
