Almost without fail every automaker should strive to reduce costs. To save money, by unwritten code of survival, it is necessary in all possible directions - including, of course, the preparation of new models. In the Volvo, according to the head of the development Department of the company Peter Mertens, not only optimizing spending on new items, but will learn them as quickly as possible to release around 20 months, to be exact.
Such interesting plans Mertens shared on the sidelines of the recent Geneva motor show. In an interview with Autonews senior Manager told me that the key to saving money and the very high speed of development will become a platform. Rather, their number - the Swedes will use only two. One architecture, aka SPA, today serves only to new XC90, but later will form the basis of all other successors Volvo. Except V40 - there will leverage the latest CMA, which the firm is preparing in cooperation with engineers of the parent Geely. In the future it will become the platform of all compact models Chinese companies and, of course, future mini Volvo.
However Mertens brought a couple interesting figures on the current development time machines. According to him, the current Volvo V40 spent about 42 months, while new Toyota Mazda Mature in an average of 26 months. Of course, the timing of the release within a couple of years will be a good trump card for smaller firms. In addition, this will reduce the life cycle models and, accordingly, often to update the range (that was not as with the XC90, yeah). In General, the news from Volvo. Good luck!