Volvo Group in North America– trucks rather than cars!

When the founders of Volvo retired, they invited a clever young man to take the reigns as CEO. In 1956 he introduced the Volvo in the United States by introducing Volvo Cars, prompting some to say that trying to sell Volvo cars to Americans was “Like selling refrigerators to Eskimos”. And after over 40 years of proving them wrong with success, the Volvo Group decided to focus on commercial vehicles and sell the car operations to Ford Motor Company in 1999.

More than 50 years later, in North America we have a population of more than 500,000 vehicles, including heavy duty trucks, buses, dump trucks, and articulated haulers. We also produce marine engines and aircraft engine components. Today, the Volvo Group represents great brands like Volvo, Mack, UD Trucks, Prevost and Nova Bus and our operations in North America alone amount to $8 Billion in sales. That represents 16% of Volvo Group’s total sales. We have 13,000 employees in North America – 9,500 of them in the U.S. with manufacturing facilities in seven states. We also have manufacturing facilities in Canada and Mexico.

And you thought Volvo only made cars!