Volvo is an extraordinarily important car brand to me, which is why the shakiness of its leadership and uncertainty over its ultimate direction has been a bit of a bummer. The company’s board has found a new chief, and it just so happens he comes from another brand I care about.
Yes, I’ve found a new reason to talk about my favorite modern Czech automaker in The Morning Dump, but this time it’s valid because this time it will impact the cars you can buy in the United States. It’s also good news for Volkswagen Group which, yeah, needs some good news after again revising down its profit target for the year.
The biggest subprime auto lender in the United States is going to forgive the debts of 55,000 borrowers and pay restitution, even if it’s a little late for a lot of buyers. BYD is a massive, major player that doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. I can prove definitively that it’s a real OEM with the last story of the day.
Volvo, Prepare To Get Zellmer’d
Škoda has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dark few years for the Volkswagen Group. The brand has consistently produced attractive, affordable cars with a range of powertrain options. More importantly, the Czech carmaker has been able to sell a lot of cars while also making money.
One should never ascribe the success or failure of a car brand (or any enterprise) to one individual. Still, as CEO, Klaus Zellmer had to sit in the big chair right as the EV head fake was starting to fade and in the midst of a semiconductor shortage. As a primarily European automaker, Škoda also got hit hard by the knock-on effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine just as Zellmer took over.
The company has done great since then. Under Zellmer, the brand didn’t lose its head chasing fads. It didn’t promise too much — just than it would make cars people wanted and sell them at a decent price. Škoda has also been relatively drama free for a VW Group brand.
Last year, as most European brands cratered, Škoda returned to sales of over one million cars, and did so while returning nearly $34 billion in revenue and profits of a little under $3 billion for a margin of about 8.3%, which is great these days.
Volvo Cars took notice, and has appointed Zellmer to the head job at the company, replacing Håkan Samuelsson, who took over for former Dyson exec Jim Rowan after a short and rocky stint, who himself was supposed to be a replacement for Samuelsson.
The old company put out a statement about Zellmer that was pretty nice:
Under his leadership, Škoda Auto has greatly strengthened its position as one of Europe’s most successful volume brands. The brand rose from tenth place in the European registration rankings in 2022 to second place in the first half of 2026. At the same time, the company achieved record results in sales volumes, revenue and profitability, consistently advanced its e-mobility strategy and accelerated its internationalisation, particularly in India and Southeast Asia.
The Supervisory Board would like to thank Klaus Zellmer for his great commitment and his significant contribution to the continued development of the Škoda brand.
Chief Financial Officer Holger Peters will run things until a full-time replacement can be found. What’s Volvo saying about this?
Via Bloomberg we’ve got a statement:
The German has “a strong record of guiding organizations through transformation and changing market conditions,” Volvo Car Chairman Li Shufu said in the statement. “His experience from both the high-end premium segment and high-volume brands is an excellent fit.”
Volvo needs all the help it can get, having overextended itself on EVs, botched the rollout of key vehicles, and killed the station wagon. A new product blitz is coming and Volvo seems to understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for cars that’ll sell in Shanghai, London, and Lexington.
If anyone can save Volvo, it’s Zellmer. I just hope Škoda gets someone good as a replacement.
Volkswagen Plans To Make A 1% Margin This Year
Even if the Czech brand is profitable this year, it’s not going to be profitable enough to make up for all the losses at the various parts of Volkswagen, which revised its profit outlook down from a weak 4% to an even weaker 1%. The market’s not loving the action.
Shares were 0.5% lower in mid-morning deals, extending Friday’s 8.3% decline after Volkswagen downgraded its expected operating return on sales to 1%, from a previous forecast of 4% to 5.5%. It blamed an impairment related to its large holding in Porsche, a “further deterioration” in the market environment — particularly in China — and restructuring expenses.
“An accelerated shift in demand in favor of battery-electric vehicles … will lead to developments falling short of original expectations, especially for the Audi and Volkswagen Passenger Cars brands,” the company added.
Separately, Volkswagen was ejected from the Euro Stoxx 50 on Monday, a move announced earlier this month as part of the index’s annual update to reflect the euro area’s biggest companies across major sectors.
The last time Volkswagen was in this bad of shape it was recovering from the global financial crisis.
Credit Acceptance Corp. Accepts $710 Million Settlement
The Credit Acceptance Corporation is the nation’s largest subprime lender. It’s also been a party to a lawsuit originally brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the CFPB pulled out of the lawsuit without getting anything, likely because the Trump administration hates the consumer protection agency).
A group representing most of the attorneys general from across the United States kept the lawsuit going and scored a massive settlement.
From the NY AG’s office:
As a result, CAC will eliminate all debt owed by more than 55,000 consumers nationwide, resulting in more than $630 million in debt relief on auto loans that were destined to fail from the start. In addition, CAC will pay $60 million in restitution to thousands of additional consumers who were misled and lost their cars within months of taking out their loans with CAC. Finally, CAC will pay a $15.5 million penalty to the states. In total, New York will receive approximately $34 million in debt relief for consumers and restitution and penalty payments.
In addition to financial payments, CAC must adopt industry-leading practices to protect consumers. If certain at-risk borrowers default on car loans from CAC within 12 or 18 months and have their vehicle repossessed and sold, CAC must forgive 95 percent of their debt and will only be allowed to collect the remaining five percent. CAC is also barred from suing to collect the debt or reselling it to others. To prevent consumers from paying for unwanted add-ons, CAC must contact consumers outside of the dealer showroom to clearly inform them of any products they purchased and offer them a process to cancel those products while keeping their vehicles.
While CAC admitted no wrongdoing, the wrongdoing was extra wrong as Reuters notes:
In one alleged instance, Credit Acceptance awarded a $260-a-month loan to a mother of two though she made just $950 per month. The company collected $8,400 from her, and her vehicle was repossessed twice, court papers show.
BYD Recalls Trucks For Spare Wheel That Might Just Fall Off
The BYD Shark isn’t just a random, low volume product in Australia, it’s lately been the best-selling truck of any kind for non-commercial buyers. And to prove the truck is a real player, and BYD is a real car company, it’s just gotten caught in a truly embarrassing recall.
According to News.com.au, the spare wheel under the bed could fall off the car unexpectedly. Why?
The company says “in certain circumstances incorrect installation of the spare wheel, incorrect positioning of the spare wheel tray or insufficient fastening torque may cause abnormal wear of the spare wheel support cable”.
Reading between the lines, the wheel is only held in place by a thin cable. That cable will be replaced by much stronger chains.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Wait, did The Weeknd just sample the theme from Neon Genesis Evangelion for his new song “Toyko” and perform it live this weekend? Yes. Yes he did. Damn, that’s cool.
The Big Question
What dose Volvo need to do to survive?
Top photo: Golden Princess Film/Škoda
I know a lot of people are going to say that Volvo needs to return to its’ bricc roots with boredoms and well engineered reliability. More reliability never hurts, but I don’t think that’s Volvo’s problem. As a former Saab owner I love that they’ve taken over Saab’s role- shed a bit of that stodginess and focused on design. What Volvo needs is new product. The SPA cars were sensational when new and have held up stupid well, but all of their bread and butter is still 7-10 years old. I sold my father on an SPA S60 back in 2019 and that car still is being sold identically today. Regardless of long product cycles being a Swedish tradition, people who liked and owned the SPA in 2016 tend to want to experience something slightly different looking 10 years later. They seem to get that so they should be fine.
RE: BYD spare tires.Plenty of pickup trucks have their spare tires suspended in position by a cable winch, including the famed GMT800 and it works just fine.
TBQ: I would like to buy a brand-new Volvo 245, please and thank you.
Being in the midwest, I’ve seen plenty of these spare tires mounted under trucks. Usually, with a nice coat of rust covering the whole apparatus, making sure nothing comes loose
Seems like it’s not always good to be a 1%er, eh VW?
TBQ: Mork, mork, mork
BYD Stands for “Build You Dreams.” Sounds like someone had a dream about recreating a Final Destination scenario at scale.
TBQ? Sell Matt another Volvo.
Volvo needs to get back to being Volvo rather than a poor impersonation of Tesla. Volvo chased every fad and basically made every single wrong turn they could’ve made over the last 5-7 years. They overcommitted to EVs at the expense of hybrids, they de-contented their famously nice interiors in favor of screens, and they’ve overcommitted to SUVs.
They basically did everything they shouldn’t have done. Honestly it’s pretty incredible that they could fuck up so badly over and over again, but alas. I also think Chinese ownership has harmed them quite a bit and driven a lot of the over reliance on tech gimmicks, but that’s a conversation for another time.
Volvo needs to make good, simple, stylish, safe cars with nice interiors and touch points again. That includes wagons and sedans, regardless of how big of a tantrum the bean counting nerds throw. Something else that I don’t think is discussed enough is how fucking expensive they’ve become.
Maybe I’m seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, but when I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s Volvos were not exclusively owned by rich people…and if anything they kind of occupied the sort of premium niche that Acura currently does. They were something the middle class could aspire to…and that is no longer the case.
Literally everything is catered to the wealthy at this stage, and unfortunately Volvo can’t compete with the Germans on dynamics or powertrains, and they can’t compete with the Japanese on longevity. Their cars have become increasingly hard sells as a result because they don’t offer anything unique anymore.
IMHO if Volvo wants to come back they need to throw a hybrid wagon that’s within striking distance of a well equipped Outback together. Put the buttons back in the interior, reduce the screens, raid the parts bin if you have to, give it boxier styling, and get it to market. They should be capable of doing this, they have most of what they need in-house and can maybe give it a detuned version of their PHEV powertrain to save time and money.
I also think they need to update the XC60 in a similar way and (sigh), make it bigger, and maybe give it an optional third row. The XC90 is too fucking expensive for probably 98% of families now…and I think they should keep it around and turn it into their flagship SUV, but Volvo needs family cars that are vaguely attainable, and they don’t have that right now.
“Volvo needs to get back to being Volvo rather than a poor impersonation of Tesla.”
This could also be said about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, VW….
Just because people want EVs does not mean people want Tesla-imitators.
Look, I love The Weekend, but “perform it live this weekend” is a bit disingenuous. It played while he was on stage, sure, but other than a little dancing, not much performing was happening here. Dude can sing but that isn’t on display here.
I’ve never been able to fully form an opinion on Abel. At his best he’s as good as anyone and he clearly has a strong artistic vision…but he has so many throwaway songs in his discography and he’s a merely average lyricist on a good day.
After Hours was as close as it got to me feeling like “hey we have a solid front to back project from The Weeknd”, but even that was just shameless 80s worship…which like, is fine, that was the best era of music ever. But I’ve just always wanted more from him, if that makes sense.
I don’t think his side quests are helping his case either. He’s a god awful actor and writer. I can’t help but feel like his ambition exceeds his abilities a lot of the time. That being said…he has a handful of songs that will be on my playlists for the rest of my life. I’ve just always been left thinking he hasn’t reached his sky high potential yet.
I do think he has the talent to go down as one of the greats but I don’t know that he’ll ever have the execution.
Volvo has been as good as dead to me since they were bought up by the Chinese.
NOPE.
I own enough things made in China. Too many of them I have no control over where they are made. I ain’t adding a Chinese car to that list.
All the silly little Swedish flags sewn into their seats and all the imagery of Vikings aren’t going to change the fact that they are Chinese through-and-through now.
Some Volvos are still built in Sweden, you know.
You’ll be disappointed to learn where your Pöäng armchair came from tho.
Volvo needs to define its unique position in the “premium” market. I’m not saying they have to look backwards (but they certainly could…), but for decades you knew exactly what a Volvo was: a car engineered for safety and longevity, with an iconoclastic design sense built around logic and function. Not a super emotional car, but one you felt good about spending a decent chunk of change on, because you felt like you were getting a good return on your money. Turbos added a bit of spice to the mix without compromising the safety message.
What is a Volvo now, within the context of its competitive set? It’s still a pretty unemotional choice, but there’s no edge on safety, reliability, or a particularly unique take on design, although most modern Volvos are undeniably handsome and comfortable.
Obviously, the dozens of us who read this site would like them to bring back wagons; I think they should, too, if only because that provides a market niche that they can OWN, with solid, existing brand equity built in and little to no competition. The numbers may not be huge, but there’s little downside to claiming the loyalty of the next generation, who aren’t going to want to drive what their parents did (crossovers) but, like the last however many generations before, are still going to gravitate toward the functionality of a long roof and a tailgate.
I’m with you. I feel like you used to get a Volvo if you thought of yourself as too weird for Lexus but valued the same things Lexus was good at. Now I regularly forget Volvo exists.
Volvo is the good looking luxury automaker. In a world where Mercedes design is trying to be Dubai and BMW design is trying to be something from an iRobot future, Volvo should lean into good design with lovely details (not just a freaking screen in a featureless expanse).
you mentioned the Global financial crisis in the VW discussion, honestly I kind of fear that #2 is just around the Tariff/Diesel tarnished corner. Volvo might do ok if the polestar stuff takes off in Europe, but I am not sure. VW will be in a much bigger world of hurt though.
Lots of truck spare tires are only held up by a thin cable on a small winch. That in itself isn’t a problem.
Better the spare fall off than one of the non-spare wheels, I guess.
TBQ: MVGA – Make Volvo Great Again – Get Boxy.
Volvo needs to make good cars at good prices. And of course, wagons 😛
Volvo needs to remove their enshittification of Tesla inspired interiors and go back to solid buttons and knobs, along decent software.
I was so happy when I moved from a Polestar 2 to a Blazer EV to get actual buttons to control basic functions. Not Volvo quality interior (thats what Cadillac is for) but with buttons and now Gemini in the car, I can control the majority of the functions very easily.
Yeah wish the 2 had more buttons I have gotten mostly used to it coming from cars with no touch screens but it compared to my dad’s Blazer EV is a night and day difference for controls. Though I like the screen layout a bit better in the 2 but not the lack of buttons. No idea what car I’ll go with in the future want to get an R3X but Rivian is allergic to buttons also. The scout (if comes out) will be to pricey. So maybe a used i4?
We just picked up a CPO i4 this weekend and it’s great, but I’ve got bad news for you on the button front… At least it still has the iDrive knob, so not everything has to be controlled through the touchscreen.
I just did that, too. The knob was actually a bit of a selling point. I’m still trying to figure out all the settings and options.
Make fun ads featuring Peter Stormare comparing Volvo’s to other great Swedish things like the moose, fjords, vikings, the Swedish Chef, IKEA and so on with the tagline of “Volvo – en svensk grej”
“Volvo needs all the help it can get, having overextended itself on EVs…”
What a ridiculous thing to post as fuel prices are now over $5+/gallon across the US (depending on location and fuel type) and over 50% of Americans are now interested in an EV for their next car – not to mention the costs of fuel in countries where it is not subsidized by government taxes.
https://carbuzz.com/most-americans-interested-in-evs-september-2026/
Volvo clearly needs more hybrids (plug in or otherwise), EVs and station wagons – and a sedan or two plus a smaller EV car (C30 replacement?) for those on a budget might be a smart move as well.
The thing with Volvo hybrids they are expensive as hell. Would have loved a plugin V60 or V90 but they were all well over like 65k msrp
The average price of a new car in the US is $50,000 these days.
Volvos were never average-priced/cheap cars.
TBQ: STATION WAGONS.
The problem with the CAC settlement is that whoever is in charge isn’t in jail and/or very heavily fined.
Bingo.
Bring out the Guillotine.
I feel like letting companies “not admit wrongdoing” is definitely sending the wrong message. As is allowing the people doing the bad things to suffer no consequences. Also, I am curious how much money they made from those sketchy loans, and if that figure is less than the fines and penalties. If it is, that’s not a consequence, that’s a cost of doing business. If we want punishments to teach, ALL the ill-gotten gains must be disgorged, AND a punitive penalty imposed, both on the company, and on the executives responsible.
It’s the American way…
But then the company may go bankrupt, and dozens of execs would be out of work…WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE EXECUTIVES?!?!!!
They were not convicted. Therefore, they were not legally punished. they chose a settlement and the attorneys general agreed to that. Why aren’t you upset at all the state attorneys who “caved” and allowed this?
Oh, I am always upset at attorneys and judges who take an easy settlement over fighting for a conviction. Our legal system has massive structural problems that incentivize avoiding trials because those take time and resources.
Corporations are people…when it’s convenient.
The memory of hearing that judgement on NPR as I drove home is seared into my brain. That’s the day I knew we were cooked.
A settlement is not a conviction, so there is nothing you can put them in jail for. The attorneys general CHOSE to accept a settlement. Often this is motivated by a guarantee of money and action, as opposed to spending likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions, over the next few years, trying to prosecute and actually get a conviction. And even if there is a conviction of the company, that is not a conviction of any individual, which requires an even greater level of effort and detail in order to prove that particular individual is extra responsible for the crime.