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Volvo is a Swedish car manufacturer founded in 1927. The company is officially known as Volvo Cars and produces a range of consumer automobiles. In contrast, AB Volvo, which was split from Volvo Cars in 1999, is responsible for manufacturing heavy industrial trucks. Volvo Cars was acquired by Ford in 1999 and then by the Chinese corporation Geely in 2010, of which it remains a subsidiary today. The company is headquartered in the historic Swedish city of Gothenburg. It produces about 500,000 cars annually and accumulates almost $22 billion in revenue each year. It has subsidiaries located in North America, Canada, and India.

The distinguishing factor of Volvo since its inception has been its focus on safety. In fact, the seat belts found in cars today can be credited to Nils Bohlin, Volvo’s first safety engineer. Volvo prides itself on this fact, especially since one of the company’s motivating factors has been to design cars that would reduce the loss of lives in traffic accidents. Additionally, the rear-facing child seat was also created at Volvo in the late 1960s. During the 1970s, the Volvo 240 model set a new benchmark in car safety and prompted the US to refresh its car safety regulations. Volvo continues to produce one of the safest cars available in the market.

Today Volvo sells a variety of cars including sedans, coupes, SUVs, hatchbacks, and station wagons. The V60 station wagon is a plug-in hybrid that was released in 2010 and is still in production, ranking among the best-selling plug-in hybrid vehicles in Europe. The V90 is a more luxurious version of the car and is offered in 8-speed and 6-speed transmissions along with a 2.0-litre engine. In the SUV category, Volvo produces the mid-size XC60 and XC40. The XC40, an all-electric compact SUV, earned much praise from car enthusiasts and accumulated several awards for its balance of optimal performance and interior space.