Volvo is now crawling to its knees and apologizing. First to its Chinese customers, because copycat parts have ended up in otherwise brand new cars.
Volvo Cars is now lying flat after it emerged that brand new cars at a Chinese dealer were filled with copycat speakers.
Several Chinese drivers have discovered that their cars were filled with copies of speakers from the company Bowers & Wilkins.
This is reported by the Chinese media Sohu .
After the customer's post on social media, it is clear that this is not a one-off fault in a single car. Other Volvo owners in China had also found speakers in their cars with brands such as "Bowers & Wilkins" or even "Bovvers & Wilkins".
Furthermore, it has been revealed that the glass in the gear selector lacked the backlight that certain models can be equipped with from the factory.
It is still unclear whether the counterfeit goods were thrown into the cars at the dealership or whether the cars came like that from the factory. But Volvo has already apologized for the blunder.
"We humbly apologize for the problems and inconvenience this has caused our customers," Volvo wrote.
The car brand writes in this connection that it distances itself from what customers have been subjected to. The brand will not rule out that a lawsuit will arise from the matter. It will probably be directed against the dealer.
The copycat case also comes at a really bad time for Volvo. At home in China, sales fell by 8.2 percent in 2024 alone compared to 2023. This, even though last year was actually a record year for the Swedish-Chinese brand.
Volvo, on the other hand, is far from the only one that has had to wave goodbye to a number of customers. The major European car brands are also bleeding.
At Porsche, the decline is so great that management feels ready to focus more on models with combustion engines. Here too, sales in China in particular have declined.
Specifically, Porsche will spend 800 million euros on the development of the combustion engine. At the same time, BMW promises that neither the V8 engine nor the classic straight-six will be retired.
And at Mercedes, there are many indications that AMG is finally ready to admit that a 4-cylinder top model in the form of the C63 AMG was never a good idea. At least the performance department would like to confirm that a new V8 engine is on the way.
