Having already received nearly 80,000 orders for its new small SUV, Volvo has decided to boost production of the XC40 to meet the strong demand. It’s not going to happen right away, as the Geely-owned marque mentions it will ramp up production at the Ghent factory in Belgium and also at the Luqiao plant in China during the first half of 2019.
It will be possible to free up production capacity for the XC40 at the Ghent facility because the outgoing S60 and V60 models are exiting the assembly lines. Due to be revealed this summer and set to become Volvo’s first car to come without a diesel engine, the next-generation S60 saloon will be manufactured at the firm’s new US factory. As for the new estate version of the car, that will be built at the Torslanda plant in Sweden, but some of the production output for the next-generation V60 will still come from Ghent.
More from the XC40:
The XC40 – also known as the European Car of the Year – is currently the sole member of the CMA-based compact car family, but Volvo says more are on the way. However, the V40 hatchback will not be renewed as per a statement made by a company spokeswoman in an interview with industry website Automotive News Europe. That probably means the V40 will revert to its estate origins to join the bigger V60 and V90. Another model in the pipeline is a new S40 saloon, as previewed by the 40.2 concept pictured below.
The aforementioned S60 and V40 are the remaining new Volvos to debut this decade, a company that has refreshed its portfolio in recent years from top to bottom. During this period, it has also spawned a performance-oriented Polestar standalone brand set to build the Polestar 1. It’s a 600bhp plug-in hybrid originally conceived as an S90 Coupe before switching to a new badge.
Gallery: 2018 Volvo XC40 reveal
Volvo Cars to expand production following overwhelming demand for XC40
Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, has received almost 80,000 orders for the new award-winning XC40 small SUV and is expanding production in Europe and China in order to meet demand.
Production will be expanded at its Ghent manufacturing plant and Volvo Cars will add XC40 production capacity at its Luqiao plant in China in the first half of next year, underlining the popularity of this year’s European Car of the Year.
In addition, the company has also announced today that it will capitalise on the popularity of its new smaller models with the introduction of new models on its Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), replacing the current V40.
“The XC40’s success has surpassed even our highest expectations,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and CEO of Volvo Cars. “The small SUV segment is the fastest-growing segment in the industry now, and with these additional CMA-based models we expect to benefit further from that growth.”
The coming new models based on CMA will include fully electric vehicles and will be sold globally in all major regions. More product details will be disclosed at a later stage.
The XC40 was launched in late 2017 to global acclaim and was the first ever Volvo to win European Car of the Year in March of this year.
The new XC40 is the first model on Volvo Cars’ new CMA vehicle architecture. Co-developed with Geely Holding, CMA provides Volvo Cars with the necessary economies of scale for this segment.
In March, Volvo Cars announced it will produce cars for its new sister brand Lynk & Co at the Ghent plant. Like the XC40, the first Lynk & Co model is based on CMA.