Volvo sold 427,840 cars in 2013. Delivery growth this year is likely to be “close to 10 percent,” Chief Financial Officer Hans Oscarsson said in an interview recently, compared with an earlier forecast of a “good 5 percent” gain. Production of the current XC90 SUV at the Torslanda plant ended in July. The model is still being built in Daqing, China, exclusively for sale in that country as the XC90 Classic. Even with the brand’s focus on safety, which includes a program to eliminate car-crash fatalities by 2020, drivers look at all aspects of a vehicle when buying a Volvo, said Andreas Bauer, a co-manager of the Autohaus am Goetheplatz dealership in Munich that handles the marque.
“The most important thing is that the design of the car appeal to the customers,” Bauer said by phone. “People won’t buy the car for its safety features if they don’t like it aesthetically.”
