After the sale of Volvo to Chinese auto manufacturer Geely, and then the following announcement of their first plants in China, the sky’s falling crowd cried that Volvo was gonna pack up move China for good.
Well if realty matters they might find the Volvo’s announcement this week of a brand-new $500 million-dollar assembly plant to be built in Berkeley County, South Carolina somewhat comforting.
With an initial capacity to build up to 100,000 cars per year the new factory to be located just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, will build a variety of Volvo models both for sales in the U.S but also for export markets.
Construction on the new plant will will begin late this year with the first vehicles expected to roll off the assembly line in 2018. It will be the first plant for Volvo in North America. Even Ford Motor Company never went that far.
What models will be built at the South Carolina plant hasn’t yet been announced, but we can expect something based on their new platform architecture that would enable several different models to roll off the same line.
Volvo says the factory will employ about 2,000 people at first with up to 4,000 people in the long term. That would be American people. So there!
