Volvo’s upcoming V40 hatchback is set to debut at the 2012 Geneva auto show, but it will “probably not” come to the U.S., the company’s CEO, Stefan Jacoby, told us recently.
The hatchback, which is based on architecture evolved from the jointly used platform underpinning the S40 sedan, Ford Focus, and Mazda 3, doesn’t fit into the company’s product plans in the States. Volvo said in the past year that it would delete both the S40 sedan and the V50 wagon from its U.S. product lineup; the C70 convertible, meanwhile, has been given an expiration date of January 1, 2014, and no replacement has been confirmed. We’ve even heard that the C30 hatchback, a three-door car that’s not terribly practical, may bite the bullet globally.
Jacoby explained that Volvo is paring its U.S. lineup to focus on its volume products: the S60 sedan, the XC70 wagon, and the XC60 and XC90 crossovers. In relative terms, Volvo is a small company—it sold roughly 67,000 cars in the U.S. in 2011, compared to about 306,000 by BMW—and can’t support marketing, sales, and service for a broad range of products.
New XC90 Crossover in 2014
Jacoby also (re-)confirmed that a new XC90—the current version of which debuted at the Detroit auto show in 2002—finally will arrive in the U.S. in 2014. The image you see above is one of a trio of preview sketches the company released at the most recent L.A. auto show.
While Volvo is currently shrinking its American lineup, it nevertheless is still busy preparing new products. The company’s flexible new SPA architecture is moving along and will launch in a few years; the same is true of a new, highly configurable four-cylinder-engine family. (You can read more about both in our coverage of the recent Volvo Concept You.) Using similar chassis and powertrain tech across the entire portfolio will drastically reduce service complexity and equipment costs for dealers, so it’s possible that Volvo will again offer a wider range of products here once these engines and platforms join with sheetmetal.
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