Volvo and Geely Open Research Center in Gothenburg, Sweden

VolvoVolvoSweden, 1927 > present49 models
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and its owner GeelyGeelyChina, 1986 > present5 models
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will open a new research and development center in Volvo’s historic home of Gothenburg, Sweden. The center will employ 200 total people from both companies who will focus on new, shared technology.

The specific goal of the new center will be to create a new, modular vehicle architecture for a C-segment car that can be used by Volvo and Geely.

The new center will be run by Mats Fägerhag who is currently Volvo’s vice president for product strategy. It is employing workers now and will be fully up and running by the end of 2013. 

Geely explains the need for the platform by saying that Volvo needs a more modern platform, and Geely wants a car that it can compete with worldwide.

"Geely will continue to improve its product quality in the years to come and can learn from Volvo Cars. However, the sharing of knowledge and technology has to be done without jeopardizing brand integrity and individual product development,” said Geely Chairman Li Shufu.

Volvo is already saying that it will build multiple cars from the platform.

In the meantime, Volvo will debut its new SPA platform for larger cars in 2014 on the next generation XC90Volvo XC90Sweden, 2002 > 201355 versions
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.