Feature
How China’s 36th-Best Car Company Saved Volvo
The auto industry is littered with failed marriages, but the stars aligned for Geely and the Swedish automaker.
A 2019 S60, under wraps. It will be the first U.S.-made Volvo.
Photographer: Benjamin Rasmussen for Bloomberg Businessweek
Hakan Samuelsson, the chief executive officer of Volvo Car Group, is sitting in the master bedroom in the home of a suburban Stockholm family he’s never met. His company has rented the modernist three-story house of blond wood and whitewashed walls for the media introduction of Volvo’s new station wagon, the V60.
Alternating groups of American, British, German, and Scandinavian journalists crowd in for short question-and-answer sessions. It’s Samuelsson’s first and probably last bedroom interview, but he plays along. “You can lie down and relax,” he tells reporters, gesturing to the queen-size bed as a grin creases his craggy face.