Fantastic for the whole Volvo crew!

What a contrast, a vehicle that has been known for its safety, being bought by a company from a country that is known for its lack thereof.

They should be keeping most of the Volvo crew after the take over?

I bet you’ll be seeing a lot of these Geely/Volvos and BAIC/SAAB 9-5s running around China in the future.

wow, it is really ironic that the company best known for its safety is being bought by a chinese one.

Never gonna sell a million volvos, even with 2 billion Chinese

Please welcome General Tso’s Swedish meatballs.

This is hilarious. Wait till some corrupt Chinese plant manager slips black-market nerve gas into the windshield washer reservoirs.

2-3 large vehichles to the line up?! is the xc60 and xc90 not enough?…
geely has the crappiest cars. they dont deserve volvo. and sharing thier technology would be disgraceful. im sure the people at volvo wont let geely touch them.

I think Benz had even more grandeur plans for Chrysler short 10 years ago.

Hey Ford . . . QUIT SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FACE. It’s taken you the better part of a decade to FINALLY come up with a strategy to pull EVEN with SOME of your Asian competitors (even isn’t good enough and you know it) and now you’re going to CREATE ANOTHER COMPETITOR??? This has to be a joke!!!

I’ve said it a million times, but I will keep typing it until everyone includes it in their conversations about this deal . . . The last bar, of any real significance, to Chinese automakers entering the U.S. market is safety technology. If Geely gets Volvo’s safety know-how then Chinese manufacturers will easily grow to 10% of U.S. market-share by 2030 (I really think you can take that to the bank). A safer route for Ford (cash-strapped or not) is to leave the Chinese to develop the safety tech on their own. The Chinese are quite able to do so, but it will slow them down by a few years. And a few years may be just what Ford needs to develop a cash cushion for the multitude of pitfalls that lay before any American carmaker.

This isn’t about not wanting the Chinese to succeed. They have every right to compete and are eminently capable of doing so, but I would like to see American companies show that we too have the knowledge and will to compete!!! Come on Ford, you’re just getting back on your feet now. This is the wrong way to raise capital! You need Volvo because few Americans believe your engineers are as culturally inclined towards safety as the Volvo engineers. The numerous tech transfers from Volvo to Ford seemingly validate this view. Ergo, you need Volvo if only to keep Ford focused on safety.

I don’t usually type in caps or resort to exclamation points, but this situation is getting desperate.

I dont understand how this is news……

Now I remember why the recently unveiled X60 looks so much like other cars
(Exact copy of E-Class headlights)… China is behind.

…all this.

Geelvos and BaiAABs… just what the world needed.

Lion, I never thought I’d hear myself say this but Ford would be far better served by keeping Volvo and letting Mercury die. You’re absolutely right… no matter how ’safe’ a deal they think they’ve secured with Geely in terms of technology it will come back to bite them in the ass. It’s just a matter of time. They say better the devil you know than the devil you don’t… how about just sidestepping the SOB altogether.

I love how people have all of these preceptions about products in general, and automobiles are no exception. Lets go ahead and look at the facts–and that fact is that Acura has the safest lineup of vehicles on the road today. Its volvos perception that they are the safest company out there. And yes they are pretty safe however there are other companies (not just Volvo and Honda) who have their heads on straight when it comes to safety. Besides I want Ford to be able to focus their efforts fully on designing globaly competitive vehicles that bear the blue oval. They are fighting the good fight by re establishing America as a company that not only builds good cars but some of the best in the world and they will never be taken seriously if people can say they are hiding behind the Volvo badge.

masteryoda83-

Fair enough . . . except Ford doesn’t own Acura or have access to their safety technology. Safety sells. Car companies know it. Their market research shows it. That’s why Acura is running the safe-make ads. Ford’s reputation pre-Volvo was “firetrap.” Nothing telegraphs a backslide towards safety ambivalence then selling a company that has a reputation for safety (whatever your personal opinion of Volvo, their reputation stands). The safety tech Volvo does have is about to be sold to a company that surely hopes to gain access to the U.S. market at some point. Ergo, Ford has it within its own power to be the maker of its own demise.

p.s. Acura’s safety record is built upon the safety testing that many on this site have disregarded as being biased at best. I’m willing to say that the gov’t and IIHS tests are empirical within the realm of what’s possible, but I view them as flawed (they just don’t test enough examples of a given car for the tests to be statistically significant). I prefer the normative knowledge I’ve received from individuals I trust who assure me that they’ve seen folks walk away from accidents thanks to Volvos. I’ve never heard one such anecdotal story that featured an Acura. All reputations are is he-said-she-said and Volvo’s will be maintained as long as safety is the number one goal of their engineers.

-Johnny

I prefer your strategy and 20 years ago it would have been a sure-bet . . . but China may be too big to sidestep now . . . dangit.

*”than” not “then” . . . type faster than I think . . .

LIon I was totally nodding my head in agreement with you through out your entire retort until i crossed the part where you first tell me about my ‘opinion’ then refute a goverment testing agency and then offer your stance based on heresay from ‘trust worthy friends’. Seriously I have people in my life who are most def trust worthy but that does not make them the utmost authority on velocity and impact equations. All I am trying to say is that yes I agree selling the Chinese a compnay like Volvo might not be in Fords best interests however, I believe firmly that Ford can build a phenomenal vehicle that will be safe. I just dont understand how some people can assume that ford has not learned anything during their stint with Volvo and when the jettison Volvo they will be back to building these so called ‘firetraps’. go pick up an accredited journal of some sort and get some FACTS before you spew misinformation thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of mistruths

A milllion units? Somebody’s been sipping the koolaid. Welcome to Jonestown.

masteryoda83-

As for the post-script section of my last post, I’m just saying that crashing one model of a car doesn’t tell you a darn thing statistically. It just says that THIS car had THIS reaction. It’s basic chaos theory at play, right (you know, that thing you talk about for like 2 seconds in high school or college before the professor tells ya yer not smart enough to get it . . . or was that just my class?)? You’re literally saying that a single test of a single car can account for all variables. It never happens and the honest professors I’ve had have explained that. I think most on this site have taken statistics and they know that if you want anything like a reliable statistical output than you have to run the test, survey, etc. about 1200 times (that’s usually the minimum and most research scientists will tell you that they rarely have the economic resources to accomplish such a task . . . for anything). Again, how many times do the various testing agencies test each model? Once? Twice (if the car company pays extra money)? Let’s say 5 times. Now, lets say that there are three big testers (IIHS, the government and Consumer Reports). So, we have 15 tests. Come on buddy, I know you’ve taken plenty of math and science courses in your life . . .

Your opinion is yours. You’ve, seemingly, taken the normative stance of some auto-journalists who write things along the lines of “lots of cars are safe” and parroted it as empirically based fact. And the individuals I’ve spoken with have included doctors. My family has been working in all spectrums of the medical field going way-back to who knows when and they all seem to disagree with what the auto-journalists say about cars (hence so many family members driving Volvos). “Facts” are simply what we make of them.

There’s no such thing as true objectivity. You know that. Humans work with numbers and that means the numbers bear the stamp of the human manipulating them. Humans are also arrogant creatures. How many times in your life have you turned on the news and heard that ‘X’ company was found to have withheld ‘Y’ study and supplanted a more favorable set of “facts” and figures? Isn’t that what we’re daily reading about Toyota? Why do you find it so earth-shattering that there are individuals out there that don’t trust every data-set that is used to produce some results? Empiricism is quite useful, but if it was as pure as folks like you indicate then we’d have far fewer disagreements in this world. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. That’s why so many fall back into (shudder) that dark-age notion of believing trusted individuals. It’s not that we discount the numbers out of hand. It’s just that we go beyond the numbers as well. You can too buddy. Sometimes your 3 buddies with Corollas can tell you more about what it’s like to drive one for 200k miles than an auto-journalist who spent 2 weeks in one.

p.s. No disrespect meant to the LLN staff. I read this site for a reason, right? But, to masteryoda83, that’s not my last step in assessing a car.

p.p.s. Oh and one last thing . . . I’ve seen plenty of expert witnesses (adjudged to be experts by their colleagues, judges, lawyers, etc.) disagree in court. I’ve also seen experts-shock-disagree with “da gov’mint!” We are none of us infallible. Thanks for arguing with me buddy. I really do enjoy the lil’ tete-a-tetes I get engage in on this site!

*change THAT “than” to a “then.” Sigh . . . I really should proofread . . . and stop posting . . . dang insomnia and homework!

lion—you’ve officialy become a good person in my book. While I dont agree with your rationale you communicate it eloquently. I will have to agree to disagree in this situation. Everyday in my profession I work face to face wth ‘joe everyman’ and listen to what his ‘trusted’ friends tell him about things I know to be completely false yet ‘joe’ believes them with almost unyielding faith. When i questions ‘joe’ about his source he whips out the same ‘my source is has more degrees and they are professionals in this field or that’ yet their field of expertise has JACK SH!T in relation to whatever the topic is at hand. What i am getting after is that, I am sure Ford is making a big mistake selling Volvo, period, especially to the Chinese. But we need to make a collective effort to perpetuate half truths and heresay based on the eight or so doctors in your family. Because at the end of the day they are physicians. end of story.

p.s. i also enjoy these little debates. Its rare on this site to joust with some one who I consider an intellectual. Too many a$$holes like NeedMoreOilForGM. what a dope

I guess overall, in regards to the qualities of any sort of brand, the influence of the perception of a product, is often more stronger than the actual qualities of a product. This is why marketing is such an important part of product development.

Without having to revive Volvo in the US, I’m sure they’ll grow well in the chinese market especially with Volvo’s reputation for safety and the cheaper manufacturing in China. I think it’s better this way rather than letting them become an independent company.

I have to agree with JohnnyC.. the Ford/Mazda/Volvo platform sharing has been beneficial for all three companies, and I can’t understand why Ford would want to create more competition by separating itself from these brands.. both of which have contributed greatly to Ford’s current product offerings and safety technologies. My initial reaction to this news is that I would never consider buying a Chinese Volvo.. but then again, I would have never considered buying a Kia fifteen years ago.. and now the Soul is at the top of my list!