Garaget - Volvo Cars Podcast

In this episode you will meet Gang Wei. Hi is responsible for the new Geely Innovation Center that is under construction in Gothenburg. This innovation centre will be a landmark in the middle of the mobility cluster at Lindholmen in Gothenburg with room for more than three thousand engineers, designers and researchers and innovators when its ready 2022. Listen to Gang and his vision and thoughts about this exciting project that invites start-ups and innovators to join Geely’s journey to be one of the global leaders in tomorrow’s mobility landscape.

Welcome to Garaget International. In this episode you will meet Mats Fägerhag CEO in CEVT, China Euro Vehicle Tecnology, owned by the Chinese company Geely, the same company that owns Volvo Cars since 2010. CEVT is a rather new automotive engineering company with it’s base in the heart of the mobility cluster at Lindholmen in Gotheburg, today with more then 2000 employees. CEVT has made an incredible journey since the start 2013 and Mats freely share his experience trough the last five years. Welcome to this exciting episode!  

Alain Visser is the CEO of Lynk & Co. We meet at his office in Lindholmen, Gothenburg earlier this fall and talked about what it takes to create an entirely new Car brand. Lynk & Co is a very special brand with huge ambitions. The first models have already meet buyers in China and they will probably sell nearly 150 000 cars already 2018 and the ambition is to sell half a million cars already 2020. And the demand is huge from customer. The plan is then to expand and offer a new type of mobility globally with start in the Netherlands. We also talked about the culture in the company with a large influence from China. The main difference is “speed” and “cost”. Welcome to the conversion.

Einar Gudmundsson and the revolution at the dealer Rejmes Einar was appointed CEO at Rejmes five years ago and since then the company has made an unbelievable journey from worse to best in class in a lot of different aspects. Rejmes is now number one dealer in Sweden in most of the customers surveys that Volvo Cars runs to measure customer satisfaction. We talk about this journey and what the drivers are. A main reason is that management has focused on supporting all the employees in their daily work and Einar as CEO meets and talk with all the 100 employee in three sites every week. There is a huge interest in the revolution at Rejmes and Volvo Cars Sweden has assigned Rejmes to be benchmark when it comes to customers satisfaction. Please welcome to the conversation.

Summer special - Xiaolin Yuan head of Volvo Asia Pacific Xiaolin was appointed Senior vice president of the market area Volvo Asia Pacific in February 2017. It includes China that is the largest single market of Volvo Cars today. We talk about the reasons of the rapid growth for Volvo in China and especially what challenges Volvo Cars meet. We also talk about the Volvo culture and what Xiaolin learned during his stay at Volvo Headquarter in Göteborg when he held the position as head of Charimans Office at Volvo. Welcome to this episode!

Care by Volvo featuring Patrik Illerstig Care by Volvo is a new way to address the need and wish for hassle free car ownership and mobility. The concept was launched a year ago and since February this year Patrik Illerstig joined Volvo as the CEO in order to boost the concept. Patrik came with a lot of experience from E-commerce and joined our company after looking for a really challenge, a company with sound values and a word class company. And the choice fell on Volvo Cars. The concept “Care by Volvo” is already a success in the US and is now spread all over the globe. It’s essential to build on a common bas concept but adapt it to the needs and the conditions on each market. Volvo Cars is again a pioneer and a frontier. An idea we discuss is to use some of our company cars in order to test and develop the concept to the next level. Who doesn’t want a hassle free car? Welcome to this inspiring and challenging episode!

The Agile transformation Volvo Cars is just in the middle of a dramatic change in how we work together. We call it the Agile transformation and is about a fundamental change in how we interact with one another. The Agile methodology is valid when we develop anything from a new software to an entire new car. In this episode you will meet Anna Sandberg and Magnus Lindh, that are deeply involved in supporting this change. They both believe that Agile work methods drastically can increase the efficiency in the daily work and help everyone to do a better job. It build on trust and the believe that everyone wants to contribute and do their part of the task without need of a lot of control. That will make the job both more inspiring and more fun and the result will be better. But of course we need training so get ready and get on board! Welcome to this inspiring and challenge episode!

Emelie Emanuelsson a true womengineer Emelie is one of two founders of the organization Womengineer. Their goal is that 2030 50% of all graduated engineers in Sweden should be women. They believe in that the reason why women is still a minority at the technical university’s in Sweden is because lack of information to possible girl candidates. Emelie is an employee at Volvo Cars since 2015 and holds a position as product owner for clean air quality and enjoy her work and find it extremely fun, exciting and developing. The work with womengineer is all voluntary and includes organisation an yearly event called IGE(Introduce a Girl to Engineering)-day that let nearly 2000 girl from 12-19 year to visit a workplace and understand what it could be working as an engineer. Volvo Cars was one of the sponsors earlier this spring and opened up for several girls to visit our offices and plants. Get inspired and listen to Emelie – a true role model for coming generation of womengineer!  

Meet Shahbaz Kahn - traffic general in Goteborg Shahbaz is newly appointed chairman of the Traffic board of Goteborg. We have an intense discussion in Goteborg about the new train tunnel “the west link” and that discussion is something that we handle. But most important is how the world leading mobility cluster in Goteborg that has rapidly developed the last 10 years can collaborate with the city and the academy to strengthen all parties. The city is already a test arena for new technologies with the “Driveme-project” and others but we have all opportunities to develop it to a entirely new level. When it comes to banning diesel cars in the city Shahbaz is clear that he is against this kind of prohibition. This will only close the city for people with less resources and is not a tool he want to use. He wants to work with positive motivation so people voluntary pick traffic solutions that is both efficient and good for the environment. And he is very interesting in visiting Volvo Cars to explore possible opport

Meet Håkan Samuelsson, CEO at Volvo Cars Volvo Cars had a great 2017 and a fantastic start of 2018 with lots of great achievements and awards. Håkan’s view is that this has created a sound self-confidence in the whole company that also is necessary in order to move forward. But we cannot lean back on old victories. Håkan introduce a new idea of an organisation that builds on a clear vision and mission but without all detailed roles and hierarchies. An organisation that organize itself and is much more flexible than today’s organisation. His vision is to release people from detailed role description that hinder them, and instead “bring out the best” from each and every one and be able to get passionated about the job. Please welcome to a challenging and interesting conversation!

Meet Hanna Fager, head of HR at Volvo Cars Volvo Cars is going through a dramatic transformation and that put a lot of challenges on all of our employees including the head of HR. The company has doubled the number of employees since 2008 and we need to focus on what is important. Hanna look on 2018 as a year when we need to consolidate what has been achieved the last years and to find new way to “group around a challenge” and leave the bureaucracy behind. We need to develop our leadership skills and that goes for all of us , not only our formal managers. Welcome to on intense and inspiring session with Hanna.

Meet Martina Buchhauser Volvo Cars new head of Procurement Martina is new Senior Vice President for Procurement at Volvo Cars since October 2017. She has a background from GM both in the US and in Germany and the last years from BMW. She has made a flying start with a rapid reorganization, focusing in early involvement from procurement from the start in the development process in order to get the best supplier on board as early as possible. She wants to establish a true global procurement organization, getting both quality and material cost right and trying to find a solid process for capacity. We had an intense conversation and she encourage everybody that has anything important to share to contact her. Her door is open and she is open to listen.

Joint Venture with Geely - an opportunity to coolaborate 2017 a new company was founded called Geely Volvo Automobile Technology. The scope for this Joint Venture company between Volvo Cars and Geely Auto is to share technology in order to save resources and use our common competence in the Geely group as optimal as possible. We have already reaped the fruit of successful corporation when Volvos first car the XC40 on the common CMA-platform just won the prestigious award “Car of the year 2018”. The JV-company has two offices. One in Göteborg and one in China. Hans Lindh with a long carrier for more than 30 years is the CEO of the Goteborg based office. We meet and talked about the setup of the company and all opportunities but also on risks for this new corporation. Please join us in the dialog.

Circular economy - increase profit and save the planet In this episode you will meet Mats Williander. He is a researcher at RISE- Victoria Institute at Lindholmen, Goteborg with focus on sustainability and new business models that could help business both increase profit and at the same time save the planet. He has studied “Circular economy” that is a tool to both develop the business and revenues and in the same time develop long term sustainability in order to save resources and build a eco systems that will work for coming generations. We discuss especially how this model could be adopted to the automotive industry and future mobility. Welcome to an challenging and inspiring discussion and conversation.

Bodil Eriksson and Volvo mobility service Bodil is the CEO for the newly started initiative called Volvo mobility services. This initiative address the fact that more and more people ask for flexible mobility to meet their communication needs without having to buy or lease their own car. Volvo has been sort of a pioneer in this area with Sunfleet that has been operating for 20 years and their operation is a starting point for this service but the ambition is to lift it to an entire new level and to implement it globally. Bodil’s team is situated in the very heart of Stockholm in an office called Epicenter, where a lot of start-ups and dynamic company share office and space in order to cross fertilize between the different companies. This new services have fierce competition both from companies as Uber and Google but also from OEM’s like BMW and VW. But they believe that they have an unique business idea and work intense to be able to launch their first offers to the public in 2019. We wish them good luck!

XC60 launch In this episode you will meet Karl-Johan Ekman and Magnus Olsson, two key persons in the development and launch of the new XC60 that was presented last year. The project has been extremely successful and the car has received several very prestigious awards such as the 2018 North American Utility of the Year. The XC60 is the fourth car on the SPA platform and the ramp up in production went extremely smooth. We talk about leadership and trust and how important that is in order to succeed. Please join us in this interesting dialog.

Oskar Falk Oskar is site manager for Volvos engine plant in Skövde. He has also been deeply responsible for the establishment of our first engine plant in China in Zhangjiakou. We talk about both struggles in this challenge but also what has been the success factories now when its running and produce engines both to our factories in Chengdu and in Daqing and soon also in Luqiao when Volvo will start producing the new XC40 in 2018. A critical question for the future for a plant that produce combustion engines is of course what will happen when the amount of electrified cars will increase. Oskar is a optimistic and sees more opportunities then risks and maybe we will see electric engines in the future produced in Volvos engine plants. Welcome to an interesting talk. I also want to thank you for all feedback during the year and look forward to a very exciting 2018 in the Garage with a lot of interesting visitors. Happy new Year! Magnus

Thomas Ingenlath Thomas is back in the Garage but not as Senior Vice president for Design at Volvo Cars but as CEO of the new car brand Polestar. Polestar has launched their first model #1, a beautiful performance coupe with impressing electric range as a plugin hybrid as well as a high end performance car. The media attention has been great and the interest in this new car brand with its natural connection to Volvo Cars is fantastic. We talk about Thomas new role as CEO and Polestar as a company that is a natural complement to Volvo Cars when it comes to positioning. Polestar has all the ingredients and the potential to compete with all he top competitors in the segments including Tesla. It will be exciting and thrilling to follow the future of Polestar. Welcome to the conversation.

Michael Fleiss Michael came to Volvo from Bentley and Volkswagen six years ago and became soon Vice President for Volvo Cars Powertrain engineering. He started his automotive career in his father’s garage fixing neighbours cars, 10 years old and has since then been a true car enthusiast. Since not quite a year he entered a new era in his career as Vice President for Vehicle hardware. We talk about the shift to electrification and what impact that could mean for his new area and for the whole industry. We also talk about leadership behaviour and what he brought from Volkswagen but also what he learnt at Volvo and what he appreciate from our working culture. For Michael knowledge and technology skill is an essential part of his leadership and that will not change dramatically in his organisation even when we introduce new way of working in product streams and with agile work processes. Management and Technology cannot be strict divided. Welcome to the conversation.

Katarina Eriksson and Simon Lundqvist – two talented team leaders Katarina and Simon are both team leaders in the Torslanda plant and work on the pallet line with assembly of engines, fuel tanks, exhausts systems and much more. We talk about all the challenges on the assemble line with high work load and stress, but also about an inspiring workplace with lots of ambition to improve quality and to deliver better and better. We discuss Volvo Cars culture and their dreams and wish for the future. They are young and enthusiastic and they are an essential part of Volvos bright future. Welcome to the conversation.