You may remember just a few years ago Volvo Cars was struggling so bad, people talked about bankruptcy and liquidation. But then along came the Chinese and saved the Swedish brand so thoroughly, it is now so successful as to open a new factory in America. 

Volvo’s first US manufacturing plant is located in Charleston, South Carolina, and it was built as a result of the car maker’s new global manufacturing strategy ‘Build where you sell’.The state of the art plant has swallowed an investment of USD 1.1 billion, creating around 4,000 new jobs.The factory kicks things off with the production of the new Volvo S60 premium mid-size sports saloon later today.

The new S60 is based on Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) platform which underpins other new models. Speaking of which, Volvo’s Charleston plant will also produce  the Volvo XC90 large premium SUV from 2021 for both the U.S.and international markets. It will also produce plug-in hybrid cars like all of Volvo plants around the world. And they do have quite a few plants, including two manufacturing plants and an engine plant in Europe, three car factories and an engine plant in China, and assembly plants in India and Malaysia.

“The Charleston plant establishes the US as our third home market,” said Håkan Samuelsson, President and Chief Executive of Volvo Cars. “The saloon segment and the SPA platform’s proven ability to boost profitability offer significant growth opportunities for Volvo Cars in the US and globally.”