Volvo is building a New Factory in South Carolina

Volvo is building its first plant in North America.

The Swedish producer makes a $500 million investment in South Carolina in order to help revive sales in America. The sales have lowered by almost 50% since 2005. The new automaker’s plant will be built in Berkley County (north of Charleston). It will join BMW as the second European manufacturer to build cars in the state. The factory is expected to open in three years. Eventually, its capacity is expected to be 100,000 vehicles per year. Almost 4,000 employees will get new jobs.

Chinese company Zheijang Geely Holding Group Co. has acquired Volvo five years ago. It is rapidly expanding in order to reach its aims of annual sales of 800,000 cars around the globe by 2020. The company is aimed at 500,000 deliveries in 2015. The brand is intended to catch up with its German competitors Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

At the present moment, Volvo has an $11 billion investment program around the globe. The producer will completely revise its range till 2019. Volvo will start from the new XC90 SUV which is scheduled to be available towards the end of this year. Back in 2014, the automaker sold almost 56,000 cars in America. In comparison with its peak year, the number has lessened. We remind you, that back in 2004, the company sold 129,000 vehicles.

Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo Cars Chief Executive Officer, says in a phone interview with The Detroit News that it was the full package: labour, logistics, infrastructure and everything. He considers that it is important to have a supplier network and other manufacturers in the same state.