2003 Volvo S80 2.9 Sedan 4-door 2.9l on 2040-cars

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China's Geely says it has no plan to buy Fiat Chrysler — as FCA stock leaps

HONG KONG — Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile denied media speculation on Wednesday that it planned to make a takeover bid for Fiat Chryslerk Automobiles (FCA), the world's seventh-largest automaker. Geely was one of several Chinese carmakers cited in by Automotive News, which said representatives of "a well-known Chinese automaker" had made an offer this month for FCA, which has a market value of almost $20 billion. "We don't have such a plan at the moment," Geely executive director Gui Shengyue told reporters at an earnings briefing, when asked if Geely was interested in Fiat. He said a foreign acquisition would be complicated, but he did not elaborate. "But for other (Chinese) brands, it could be a fast track for their development," Gui added. However, a source close to the matter said FCA and Geely Automobile's parent firm, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had held initial talks late last year, without disclosing their nature. The source confirmed Geely was no longer interested in FCA, noting that the parent company had only three months ago announced its first push into Southeast Asia with the purchase of 49.9 percent of struggling Malaysian carmaker Proton, a deal that also included a stake in Lotus. Geel's denial failed to dent FCA's stock. The price of its Milan-based shares has jumped more than 10 percent to a 19-year high since Automotive News first reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that FCA had rejected the Chinese offer as too low. FCA stock on the New York Stock Exchange rose sharply on Monday from $11.60 to $12.38 and on Wednesday was trading at $12.84. FCA declined to comment on Wednesday. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly called for mergers as a way of sharing the costs of making cleaner, more advanced cars, but he has repeatedly failed to find a partner and retreated from his search for in April, saying FCA would stick to its business plan. He has also spoken of spinning the successful Jeep and Ram divisions off from FCA. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and General Motors have both said they are not interested in talks with FCA. On Wednesday, Geely Automobile reported a doubling of first-half profit, above expectations, as cars designed with Sweden's Volvo won over domestic consumers. Volvo is a unit of the Zhejiang Geely group, and has recently announced it will share its technology with Geely.

Current-generation Volvo XC90 will be sold alongside its successor

Volvo's next-generation XC90 sounds like it will be more of a revolution than a simple evolution — even the name will change. The firm doesn't want to alienate buyers, so it will sell the current-generation model alongside its replacement for at least a couple of years. Allegedly called Embla, the XC90's successor will inaugurate an evolution of the existing SPA2 platform and a number of driver-assistance features. Some rumors claim that it will be offered exclusively with an electric powertrain. Keeping the second-generation model around is a way for Volvo to prevent buyers who don't want an electric car and who don't need the latest and greatest tech features from going to the competition. Making the two people-movers in separate factories will ensure that both can be built without creating logistical issues. "That is an advantage of building the new one in Charleston, South Carolina. Why should we close down the old one in Torslanda when you still have a market for hybrids, especially in America and in China?," said outgoing company boss Hakan Samuelsson in an interview with Automotive News Europe. He stopped short of saying precisely how long the current-generation XC90 will remain in production for, however. Far from worrying about internal competition, Volvo plans to give the XC90 at least one more update in order to help it fend off a growing list of rivals, especially in key markets like the United States. "We will even look into upgrading it so it looks a bit better," he told the publication. As of writing, it's the oldest member of the Volvo range: it spearheaded the brand's revival when it made its debut for the 2016 model year. More information about the XC90's replacement will emerge in the coming months, and we expect to see the model in late 2022. When it lands, it will be clearly positioned as Volvo's flagship, a spot that the XC90 has occupied since the first-generation model arrived in 2002. As new cars become more advanced and correspondingly more expensive, keeping an older model around as a budget-oriented option is a strategy that's slowly gaining ground. Porsche confirmed that the current- and next-generation versions of the Macan will coexist for a few years for reasons not unlike Volvo's. Ram keeps the last-generation 1500 in its range and charges $6,385 less for it than for the new model. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Genesis cars win accolades, offer value — so why are sales so bad?

My high-school buddy Brent Cormier was so smitten with the Genesis G80 when he saw it at an event I hosted at SXSW in 2016 he bought a used 2013 Hyundai Genesis a short time later and fell in love with the car. "It surpasses my every expectation," said Cormier, a self-described "renaissance man" who owns and runs a real estate agency with his wife Laura, is a food service executive chef and part owner of Austin-based Thin the Herd Guitars. "I was locked into Mercedes and Audi for 10 years," he added. "And felt trapped in an endless pit of maintenance costs." After owning the Genesis over the past two years — including using it as an Uber and Lyft driver to earn extra cash — Cormier learned what some frugal luxury sedan buyers and a handful of car reviewers have discovered: Genesis offers great bang for the buck compared to other premium brands and can compete with the best in terms of performance, features and comfort. Hyundai's luxury brand also earned a prominent third-party endorsement last week when for the first time Genesis topped J.D. Power's 2018 APEAL study, surpassing German luxury-performance icon Porsche. The APEAL study (which stands for Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) "measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement across 77 attributes," ranging from performance to comfort, and asks nearly 68,000 owners of new 2018 models to score vehicles on a 1,000-point scale. In its second year ranked as a stand-alone brand, Genesis earned an APEAL score that bumped it up 15 points to 884 and helped push it past Porsche — and past BMW, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Cadillac, Land Rover and Lexus, in order of ranking. Last month, Genesis also topped J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) for the first time this year. And both its models were awarded Top Safety Pick Plus ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, among 11 Plus ratings in all for Korean vehicles. Despite high J.D. Power rankings and great reviews, Genesis U.S. sales were off 50 percent for the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017, and in June Genesis sold only 796 vehicles — the first time U.S. numbers dropped below 1,000 in a month. Part of Genesis's APEAL and IQS success can be attributed to its small product lineup: just two models, the G80 and G90 sedans, with a third, the 2019 G70, launching later this year. And while those numbers may help in J.D.