[music - Dan Lebowitz - Tiptoe out the Back] Volvo saved themselves from bankruptcy with
the 700 series and the 850, but these cars propagated a boxy look that became the sort
of thing stand-up comedians ridiculed. What Volvo needed was a new direction and the first
car to use it was the S80. We’re very lucky to have the person behind this new design
– Volvo’s lead designer, Peter Horbury to take us through the whole S80 story. So, where did this
new look come from, what management shenanigans drove the decisions over how the S80
was designed and how successful was it? This is the Volvo S80 story. [music] For Volvo, concepts were more than outlandish creations that would never see the light of
day. The VESC in 1972 hinted at the new 240 design and showed off safety ideas that would
appear on the real car. The 1980 VCC showed what the new 740 would look like. The ACC
in 2001 was a dead ringer for the XC90 and the SCC would show off the ideas for the C30
that would appear 5 years later. Volvo had hired a new design director – Peter Horbury
– and he decided the 1992 ECC or Environmental Concept Car would showcase a new Volvo style.
Peter’s been very kind to sit down to talk more about the S80 and the ECC: What really happened was that here was an opportunity to show something different
as a design language for Volvo because it was a one-off. This was a concept car and
it wasn't going to make or break the company. And I flew out on my first visit to this Volvo
Monitoring and Concept Center. I went with the senior management, and it was there that
I looked at some sketches on the wall. And there was one sketch which I just
knew immediately “this is it”. And the sketch was from Doug Frasher who
was a designer in the California Studio then, and I saw it immediately that he got this
flush front with the grill up front and the shoulders the flat topped fenders, and the
V-shaped bonnet, and I saw immediately the PV544. But not just any PV544, it was the
rally version or the race version where they took the bumpers off and the grille - lowdown
- was up front. And I just saw it immediately in this sketch, and I thought “well we've
got to make this”. The PV had flat top, then a radius, then
pure vertical sides to the front fenders. And I always felt that that was very much
in line with the Swedish furniture. Where English furniture and America was all voluptuous
big armchairs with rounded forms, rounded backs, the Swedes used bent wood and that's
the way bent wood turns out. It’s that look which created this very
unique shoulder on the ECC and therefore the S80. And to be honest if you look back at
the Volvo 140 and 240 it's there as well. All the way down the side. A flat surface
coming away from the bottom of the windows, and then a radius, and then a vertical.
On the interior, the top of the centre console had an arc over it which we took
from Swedish architecture. Over the top of a window in Sweden you don't get a
Norman Arch or a Gothic arch or anything else, or a flat top. You get a slow curve which is
quite unique. Even if we were tearing up the Volvo design
book we were maintaining that Swedishness that I think gave us something exotic selling
in the world. Peter’s predecessor was Jan Wilsgaard, a
native Swede who’d designed almost all of Volvo’s cars. Peter, a Brit, had big shoes
to fill and had to persuade people this new style was both Swedish
and something befitting Volvo: There was a mixture of people in the senior
management at the time. There were let's say older and younger and I did have a hard time
in some cases to persuade them that it was time to move on. But you see the boxy Volvos
were not there forever because Jan Wilsgaard designed the Amazon which was anything but
boxy, and I used that as a reason. And then with the Amazon and all its curves and roundness
and the pointed front it was a way I could persuade them that we could look at the heritage
beyond the 850, beyond the 760, and go back and recreate something which had a lot more
shape, a lot more form. But I was also able to show them that we were
true to the Volvo principles. The arc of the shoulders running down all the way from the
front of the back, and then what we call the “Volvo Bridge” which was the three side
windows with a dog leg at the back and the surface running either side of that where
on the 760 and the 960 they'd all been in one plane. I just moved them across to recreate
that V-shape of the Amazon and the trunk tucking in. But if you look directly from the side,
you can see that Volvo look that was to be honest straight from the 960 and the 850 but
giving a more three-dimensional appearance. The ECC might look humdrum now because we’ve
seen so many cars on the road based on this style, but at the time it was a striking new
design. But the ECC was also built to showcase a new powertrain: To be honest the idea was it came from our, what we call the “Volvo Monitoring
and Concept Center” in California, and they were working on a technology to create a hybrid
vehicle. The idea being, and this is way back in 1991, that you could drive in - say we're
in Los Angeles - you could drive in the city without any emissions whatsoever because you're
using the battery. But then you could drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco using the
powertrain - which in fact in that car it was a gas turbine. It could have been a diesel
for all we know. But then when you got to San Francisco you'd have enough electricity
generated so that when you go to the city you could drive through the city
emission free. So, that was the idea that we were working on way back in 1991. I have
to say if we'd maintain that momentum with the project, hybrids would have been a Volvo mainstay
much earlier than anybody else. But I think it perhaps was a little too
complex at the time, there wasn't a readily available gas turbine engine being built.
But as we've seen in recent years and decades the petrol engine or the diesel engine
has powered a hybrid drivetrain for some years now. It was certainly at the time a very new
way of looking at lowering the emissions. And don't forget it was really the cities,
Los Angeles especially, where the smog and the emissions were a real, real problem. NiCd batteries powered the car for 90 miles (145km) but delivered a slow 23s 0-60 time.
When aided by a gas turbine engine that charged the batteries and allowed for regenerative
braking, the 0-60 time got to a more respectable 12½ seconds.
This eco powertrain had one eye on new California emissions rules. By 2003 10% of a car manufacturers
sales had to be emission free according to these rules. It was a rule crafted after General
Motors’ progress on electric vehicles that resulted in the EV-1. The ECC was Volvo’s
reaction, to ensure they could continue to sell cars in the lucrative California market
into the 21st century, and it’s surely no coincidence that it was developed at Volvo’s
studio in California. All Volvo had to do now was perfect a gas
turbine engine and a hybrid powertrain – something no other car company had done up until this
point! And they had to do it for the introduction in 1998 – just 6 years away. No pressure
then! Maybe a closer collaboration with Renault
would help. The two companies had been moving closer together in the 1990s and in 1993 a
merger was tabled. Renault’s management agreed to the deal, barely, but Volvo’s
management backed out. This put a spanner in the works for Volvo’s development team: And we were actually working on a new car based on the Safrane platform. And then one
day it all fell apart and the deal was off. So, we had to first of all we had to facelift
the old 960 as a stopgap while we found another platform to work on. Volvo needed a new large luxury car, and that car needed a new platform. This wasn’t a
light decision – new platforms need extensive work and testing so a small company such as
Volvo had to think long and hard before committing to that expense. The new platform would be
known as the P2: So, we developed the P2 which was based
on the 850 platform that moved on somewhat. And so, then we had a couple of years that
we had to fill the gap with a facelift 960, and 850 and develop something totally new
ourselves. But it gave us a lot of opportunity because the engines… We had a straight six.
It was going to be a fairly upmarket car, but we turned the straight six through 90°
and that gave us the opportunity of bringing the screen forward. And I've been
a big believer in this cockpit forward or cab forward look ever since Chrysler
started it. Even if that was a windscreen forward, and the people stayed further back
creating the biggest instrument panels or dashboards in the world! It had a look which
to me was as exciting as a mid-engined Ferrari 250 LM. It created a new look which I was
a big fan of. And we've just launched the new Lotus Eletre which follows that philosophy
all the way. And that was going to give us a really nice balanced proportion where the
cabin was set between the wheels and not slung over the rear axle quite so much as the some
of the competition. Now with electric power you get all of
that for free, but to package a six-cylinder engine in that way it was the opportunity
to create a new design language. The gas turbine and hybrid powertrain of the
ECC weren’t seriously considered, and the need to fit them in California would diminish
as the legislation would be rescinded, in part thanks to legal action from the company
that caused it to appear in the first place – General Motors! Volvo didn’t have the
funds for a new engine, so they’d use 5 and 6-cylinder versions of the Volvo Modular
Engine, although Volvo claimed 90% of it was actually new. As Peter mentioned, the engine
would be mounted transversely which gave the car more interior space. This meant Volvo’s
new luxury cruiser would be front wheel drive, when the competition were telling customers
that true luxury cruisers had to be rear wheel drive. Fitting the 6-cylinder transversely was a squeeze which required a new smaller manual
gearbox that Volvo touted as being the world’s shortest, beating out the previous recordholder
– the gearbox that Volvo fitted to the 850! A twin turbo option would also be available,
developing 268hp (200 kW), getting to 60 in 7.2s with an automatic gearbox. The 5-cylinder
turbo with that new manual gearbox could get to 60 in 7.3s.
Volvo were also very proud of the new electrical system that utilised 18 computers, all connected
through the new CAN bus. This was a system that would come to almost all vehicles to
handle increasing computerisation. Even the Morgan Plus 4 today has a diagnostic socket
for its BMW engine! The Volvo team evaluated four designs for
their new luxury cruiser, dubbed the S80. Three were in the boxy vein of previous cars,
but one followed the new design direction from the ECC. This was the chosen design and
would set Volvo’s design language for its upcoming range of cars. The shape didn’t
match the ECCs impressive 0.23 drag factor, due to silly practicalities like comfortably
accommodating tall rear passengers, but 0.28 was still impressive and helped get the most
out of those existing Volvo engines. The key phrase Volvo used for the S80, was
“understated prestige”. The affluent customers Volvo hoped to court didn’t want to shout
about their wealth with ostentatious bling. To underline this the new S80 would only be
produced as a saloon. But Volvo had to walk a line between affordability that the home market
wanted and luxury that the export market demanded: Volvo in Sweden had been more or less the people's car. The “folk bil” as they say
in Sweden. And it seemed to me that many people of Volvo felt there was a duty to supply Mr
& Mrs Svensson’s family car. So, getting the company to move upmarket would then abandon
that duty let's call it. So, there was some resistance to how far upmarket you could go.
And it did I think hold us back a little bit in our quest to move into Mercedes territory
because it always had to be the 2.3L base model which would satisfy the local market. But Volvo knew that moving upmarket was critical to their survival. It was a path they’d
started with the 700 series, and in particular the Bertone-styled 780 coupé in 1986. There
was surely a hope that one day the Volvo brand would be held with the same regard as Mercedes-Benz
just as Audi had gained an image of prestige in the 1980s.
Volvo’s luxury car needed to live up to those expectations inside the car as well
of course. Climate control, a premium audio system with two aerials for optimal reception
and the option of a Mini-Disc player – or at least that’s what Volvo’s press information
says, let me know if you ever saw one in the wild! A mayday system to call in the event
of an emergency, cruise control, heated seats, leather, wood and a navigation system all
gave that S80 the feel of a limousine. Being a Volvo, it would naturally get all
the latest safety features. A new generation of traction control kept the car on the road,
the whiplash protection system helped with, you guessed it, whiplash protection by moving
the backrest and head restraint together in an impact, and there would be a side impact
airbag curtain. Volvo would herald the S80 as the safest car available. It was the first
car to get a 5 star rating in North America. It got just 2 stars for pedestrian safety
in Euro NCAP tests though. So, probably better to be inside the S80 in the event of a crash
than outside of it! The Volvo S80 launched in 1998, replacing
the S90 as the top of Volvo’s range. Sales were brisk – over 60,000 sold in the first
year and almost 85,000 in the second year as customers realised Volvo had produced a
high-quality luxury cruiser that didn’t break the bank. This wasn’t your father’s
basic Volvo that looked like it was styled by Picasso during his cubist phase.
Gas turbines & hybrid battery technology had been tested on the ECC, but Volvo hadn’t
given up on making a fuel-efficient car. They’d produced the obligatory diesel model of course,
sourcing the engine from Volkswagen, and returning 43mpg (6.5 l/100km). But they’d also produce
a bi-fuel version, allowing the S80 to run on both gas and petrol. If you’re from the
USA, saying something runs on both gas and petrol is a very confusing statement! Specifically,
we’re talking about compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. These conversions
gained popularity in the late 1990s across Europe, but with large tanks taking up boot
space, and relatively few places to fill up, they didn’t gain mass adoption.
The S80 launch seemed to be smooth sailing, but at a corporate level it was all change.
After spurning the Renault merger Volvo went it alone, but it was always going to be hard
to make a full range of cars as a relatively small car producer. The mood in the car industry
at the time was “merge or die”. Renault and Nissan had their Alliance and Daimler
and Chrysler had forged what looked like a perfect match. After serious but ultimately
fruitless negotiations with Fiat, in 1999 Volvo announced their car division was being
acquired by Ford who would roll the company into their Premier Automotive Group that included
Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin. This not only gave Volvo access to parts from those
historic companies, but also Ford’s US operation that included Lincoln. And those benefits
cut both ways. Volvo had invested heavily in the S80 platform, and this would be ideal
for cars under Ford’s wing. To this end, the S80 platform would be used for the Ford
Taurus, 500, plus Mercury versions of the same cars, the Freestyle, Flex and the Explorer.
It also helped Ford’s luxury car dreams. They’d ended Scorpio production just a few
years earlier, and were now pinning their hopes on Jaguar with the new S-Type, Range
Rover and now Volvo with the S80 to take on European and now Japanese luxury competition
that were eating into sales not only in Europe, but also in Ford’s backyard. And the S80
platform would renew Ford’s domestic luxury brand, being used
for the Lincoln MKS and MKT. Ford dreamt big as the new millennium dawned,
with large increases in sales planned for every brand in the Premier Automotive Group.
Volvo’s sales were projected to grow by more than 40% in the next 5 years. And why
not? Ford expected the S-type and X-type to be big sellers. BMW was on the ropes as Rover
bled them dry, with companies like Fiat eyeing them for a buyout. Volvo seemed ripe for growth.
They made good quality cars, and more customers wanted safer cars as could be seen in their
interest in Euro NCAP ratings. The S80 Executive would highlight Volvo’s
push into luxury, with heated rear seats, copious wood, a built-in refrigerator, TV
with DVD, fax machine, all with a smattering of cup holders for good measure! Volvo was
known for safe cars, but the Executive took it one step further with shatterproof windows
and either light or full armour! Regular S80s got Volvo’s all-wheel drive
system, adapted for the tight engine bay and transverse engine. And while the S80 was a
large gas guzzler, it had been heralded as an eco-friendly car at launch. But this was
more around it being easy to recycle than its tailpipe carbon emissions. Volvo also
announced the “PremAir” “ozone eating” feature. A coating on the radiator would convert
ozone into oxygen as air flowed through the radiator. So, in essence you were saving the
planet the more you drove your S80! But it’s clear Volvo was trying to do what it could
to be better to the planet given the constraints it had. There just wasn’t money to build
a new engine that could run on water for example! But with Ford’s help, Volvo’s range increased
with the help of the new S80 platform: Well, the S80 begat the S60, the V70 and
the XC90. But one of the issues there was that it's much easier to start with the lower
car, the smaller car let's say, or the cheaper, the less expensive car and then add on to
it to create the most expensive. What we did - we started off with the S80, the
top of the line, and then we had to try and reduce that to make a cheaper S60 / V70. So
that was a little bit of an issue. The S80 got a few small exterior changes for
the 2003 mid-cycle refresh, but Volvo were mainly focused on developing the second-generation
car, hoping this would improve sales that had tailed off somewhat as customers gravitated
to the new XC90. Ford dictated the new car should use their existing EUCD platform that
was used for the Mondeo, S-MAX, Galaxy and Land Rover Freelander. In fact, Volvo claimed
80% of the parts of the new S80 were shared with the Ford S-MAX and Galaxy, two very different
vehicles. But it just made sense to drive economies of scale, and that was why Ford
had bought up so many car companies like properties on a Monopoly board. Surely the largest company
would end up victorious? Yeah, and Ford are great at making money.
And that was the directive - that we should use this platform. But it was always going
to be an issue to create a luxury, or anywhere near a luxury car that was that much smaller
in width. I think it was a very nice, very competent design. But by then the BMW
had set the scene with zero front overhang. The front wheel way beyond the front door
shut line or “dash to axle” as we call it. And that was a very popular format for
cars. Even Audi had a problem with the length of their front overhangs around the same time.
It was never seen truly to be a Mercedes / BMW competitor. It's just that
it was perhaps a more limiting platform. Remember it's a Mondeo, and to create
a Mercedes competitor then you have to work hard to do that. And by then of course the
front overhang was quite long, and other dimensions were as I said - the width. You have to have
a certain heft in a car to create that upmarket appearance. And when you're following the
second generation S80 you'll see it's quite slim. There were holes in Ford’s five-year battle plan. Jaguar in particular had failed, with
the X-type being poorly received and sales of the retro-look S-Type were slow. At least
Volvo’s sales were still rosy, but with Ford investing in new models there were years
when Volvo never made a profit. Despite the EUCD platform being smaller, the S80 actually grew a little in all directions,
resulting in those longer overhangs. The shape would be an evolution of the first generation
car, styled by Todd Levy. But for a car that has a new platform, it looked
remarkably similar to the old car. The new S80 would have Volvo’s compact V8
developed with and produced by Yamaha in Japan, giving the car a 0-60 of 6.5s that would allow
it to compete with the BMW M5. There was also a new inline-6 that would be shared with Land
Rover. Less exotic engines were the Mazda L 4-cylinder, the Volvo 5-cylinder petrol
and diesel from the previous S80, and even a 1.6L turbocharged Ford Ecoboost in some
markets that got a decent 180hp (134 kW) with a 0-60 time of 8.2s. It would give the S80
a little eco warrior credibility it had been so keen to get with the first generation car.
But while the V8 could give the S80 a little BMW M5 power, it couldn’t match its handling.
That’s not to say it was terrible, it was rather good with a form of active suspension.
But the S80 was designed to get you there in comfort and style, not to set a hot lap
round your local racetrack. But then if you were in a Volvo showroom, that kind of performance
wasn’t top of your mind. What prospective Volvo owners wanted from
the S80 was luxury cruising, and that’s what the interior offered. The seats on the
first generation had been praised for their comfort on long journeys, and the second generation
were just as good, with perforated seats that could be ventilated to keep you cool on a
hot day. And when it was cold both front and rear passengers could enjoy heated seats.
Side windows had thicker glass to reduce outside sounds. The new dashboard
went for a chrome brushed look and a logical set of buttons – this
was just before touchscreens would take over many of these controls. They’re cheaper
to produce and more flexible, but harder to use whilst driving. The Volvo controls on
the first generation were equally simple to use, but one backwards step was the bank of
four knobs that controlled the audio and the climate. Reviewers criticised them, saying
it was easy to inadvertently crank the audio to maximum when you wanted a warmer cabin.
Phone integration with Bluetooth made its debut, and the centre console allowed you
to connect your new fancy iPod. The infotainment system could be specced with a DVD player
and digital TV, reversing and panorama cameras. The new audio system used 12 speakers with
Dolby Pro Logic that was so good that at least according to Volvo’s marketing people “It's easy to forget that you're actually
in a car, and not in a concert hall.” I forget. Am I in a Volvo S80 or a concert hall? An interesting new feature was
the Personal Car Communicator. In the days before smartphone
apps that could monitor your car’s status this offered a small remote control that within
100m (100 yards) could tell you if the car was locked or not, or if the alarm had been
triggered. As you approached your S80 the remote could trigger the car’s lights, and
you didn’t have to unlock it. Just pull the door handle, get in and press the “Start”
button. All very cool stuff for 2006. Of course, a new Volvo needed more safety
features. The whiplash prevention system was improved along with the side airbags. Volvo
was sure to improve the pedestrian safety features to help improve that 2 star Euro
NCAP rating. Lane departure warning and blind spot detection systems made it safer still.
Adaptive cruise control could detect potential collisions and automatically brake. And swivelling
headlights allowed you to see around corners like you were rocking a 1960s Citroën DS.
The second generation S80 was unveiled at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show. Volvo, and owners
Ford were bullish about its prospects, estimating 50,000 sales every year, mostly from North
America. That might not sound too many, but a flagship model, especially the Executive
version, provided a testbed for new features that would trickle down to the mainstream
models, as well as providing an aspirational car in the showroom that helped sell the S40
and S60. Ford’s dreams of building a luxury European
empire to take on BMW, Audi & Mercedes had taken a big knock with disappointing sales.
It came crashing down with the Great Recession of 2008 that took its American rivals into
bankruptcy and forced Ford to sell Aston Martin, Land Rover and Jaguar. It initially held on
to Volvo, but mounting debts that led to mass-layoffs at Volvo worried the Swedish Government who
could see fellow Swedish car maker Saab going the same way. Ford’s growing debts forced
them to put Volvo up for sale at the end of 2008. But who would be the buyer? Various
options were pursued including BMW, various Chinese and Russian investment companies,
a Swedish Government buy-out, and there were rumours Volkswagen was interested. Eventually
it was announced that Chinese car company Geely had concluded a deal to buy Volvo for
£1.4B ($1.8B USD, €1.6B, $2.7B AUD). Ten years earlier Ford had bought Volvo for 3½
times that amount, and had invested heavily in its future – so it had truly been sold
for a knock down price. Yet, it wasn’t like Volvo was on the rocks. They had a solid line-up
of cars and good sales. No wonder then of course that Ford had wanted to
hold on to their Swedish outpost. But in 2008 Geely had the odds stacked against
it. Car mergers, seen almost as a necessity to survive in the 1990s had led to many disasters,
from DaimlerChrysler, to BMW & Rover, through GM and Saab, to Ford and Volvo. And Geely
were a company without a track record making luxury cars that sold on a world stage. Their
strategy was to leave Volvo alone and let it do what Volvo did best, while giving them
plenty of funding to succeed. Volvo chose to focus on the medium car sector,
and that meant cars like the S80 weren’t high on the priority list. That wasn’t surprising
given the lacklustre sales of the second generation car. The first sign of this shift was ending
production of the V8 engine. With smaller engines delivering more and more power, a
V8 in even the XC90 didn’t make much sense, so 4, 5 and 6 cylinder engines would be the
order of the day. Over the past 10 years Ford had been slowly
integrating Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin into the Ford supply chain. Selling
each company left a mess. Yes, Volvo could use Ford’s parts for a while, despite Ford’s
worries that Volvo’s new Chinese owners would swiftly copy their parts. But over time
Volvo would need to develop new parts, from the smallest sub-assembly through engines
to the whole platform. It helped that the EUCD platform was designed for smaller cars.
It had already been used for the V70 and XC60, and would be used for the S60 and V60. Well, Volvo’s a very proud company and the Swedes are very proud of their homegrown
businesses. And I think there was some friction about the direction we were taking. But Ford
were the owners. I think they respected Volvo. I think when they put the Brit in charge,
he had that nice balance. But I think I could sum it up, the difference
between the Ford years of Volvo and the Geely years at Volvo I would say that in a nutshell
Ford came to tell us what to do and Geely came to ask us what to do and that's a big
difference. And I think that's where the current success stems from, allowing, as chairman
Li Shufu said “set the tiger free in the forest." Volvo still had one version of the S80 in the pipeline – the S80L. 14cm (5”) longer
than the regular S80, this gave more than 1m (40”) of rear leg room. It was sold in
China and pitched towards dignitaries and the very rich with the same luxuries that
had graced the Executive version of the first generation car. The second
generation S80 got a few small updates. In 2009 the grille got a larger badge
along with a bit more chrome bling. New diesel engines appeared a year later including a
frugal 1.6L. There was the option of ordering the car with a sports setup that improved
cornering, along with a sporty R-Design interior. A DAB radio and new “infotainment” system
with Bluetooth streaming kept the car relevant. Another small update appeared in 2014 to the
front and rear bumpers. The Inscription package, like the Executive version provided a little
luxurious individuality. Features included: Sovereign Hide leather seats, high gloss walnut
wood inlays, and a special trim. The infotainment system could be connected to the Intertubes
through a snazzy 3G connection, and like most of these systems, customers avoided them for
their smartphones. And the dashboard got all digital with the Adaptive Digital Display,
borrowed from the V40 and offering tailored experiences depending upon the driving mode.
Further safety features appeared, such as a system that would automatically brake for
pedestrians and cyclists. The S80’s diesel engines continued to improve, delivering 71mpg
(3.9l/100km). And with a turbocharger it wasn’t a gutless wonder either with a 0-60 of 8.4s.
When the second generation S80 launched, Volvo expected sales of 50,000 every year. The result
was disappointing. Customers continued their exodus to SUV platforms, and saloon sales
continued to dip. There would be a replacement though – the S90 in 2016 based on Volvo’s
new SPA platform that they’d designed for their next generation vehicles. While sales
in Volvo’s traditional market of North America have tailed off, sales in Geely’s home market
have actually blossomed. While sales of the S80 didn’t match expectations,
and Volvo didn’t manage to break into the luxury category ruled by the German car companies,
Volvo under Geely has managed to thrive to the point where they sold over 700,000 cars
in 2019 – the highest in the company’s history. And they’re planning for the future,
with the acquisition of the Polestar brand that sells EV versions of their mainstream
cars. Volvo is electrifying their entire range. The Polestar 5 is supposed to be a large luxury
saloon and will arrive in 2025, so maybe this will be the continuation of the S80 lineage
and will help Volvo sales to thrive. After all, the S80 has survived the acquisition
of an American automotive giant, and the fire sale shotgun
wedding with a Chinese upstart. Surely it can survive
a switch from petrol to electricity? Again, many thanks to Peter Horbury. When he’s not talking to someone with a Lego
obsession, he’s hard at work helping Lotus with their latest cars. He also started
Geely Design which now comprises 6 studios around the world.
So, at least he's keeping busy! There's a lot more details about the S80
in the full interview that’s linked on the right. Thanks for watching
and I’ll see you in the next video.
