Chinese. Volvo is a fully Chinese company that has some people working for them in Sweden. That does not make Volvo a Swedish carmaker. Zeekr also isn't a Swedish carmaker, despite having an R&D center in Gothenburg.
A friend recently got a steering pump for his classic Volvo 940 and instead of a European part the official Volvo dealership gave him a Chinese part. Broke in a couple of months.
The times that a Volvo would do 500,000 kilometers with basis maintenance is in the past.
Volvo (Cars) doesn't just "have some people working for them" in Sweden. Volvo Personvagnar Aktiebolag was founded in, and is incorporated in, Sweden. Their HQ is in Sweden.
Zeekr was started by a Chinese company in China and has their HQ in China.
I consider it "Swedish-Chinese"
Volvo builds more cars in China than it does in Sweden.
Volvo is owned by the Chinese.
Arguably more of the design for Volvo cars is done in China. It depends on whether you consider the visible design more important or the powertrain.
Volvo is part Swedish, but it's much more "Chinese-Swedish" than "Swedish-Chinese".
Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover are in later stages of this, Toyota as of late is in mid stages. Every major appliance brand has been through the full cycle it seems.
Volvo Cars has been bought by Geely. That is not comparable.
They funnel all of their foreign profits through various tax shelter subsidiaries in Ireland and similar locations.
Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Netflix are all incorporated in Deleware, Apple is incorporated in California.
Swedish or not is a matter of perspective at this point.
Similarly for mojang, king and dice. All founded in Sweden, main offices in Stockholm, and owned by American companies(ms, ms, and ea, respectively)
Arguably powerhouses of Swedish gaming, arguably American affiliates in Sweden.
Volvo Group - sells trucks - publicly traded - Swedish
Volvo Cars - sells cars - not publicly traded - 100% owned by Geely (Chinese)
Volvo Cars ≠ Volvo Group
It's got a few issues, but the thing has been a beast. Not sure how Chinese it is however.
Give me buttons, not a font.
Despite my frustrations with their shop, they have been very good about keeping me in a revolving door of 2025 and 2026 loaner cars, especially the XC40 and XC60. Despite the occasional glitched audio or freezing bugs, I think they really have done a good job with the Android Automotive integration. It's nice having it logged in and able to see my Google Maps search history, but without having to actually have my phone on me or plugged in for CarPlay. For example, if another family member borrows the car and all that stuff just works for them too without them having to separately configure their phone.
I would be nervous about how well it all will be supported over the long term, especially once these cars are >4yrs old and off lease. But at that point you can always fall back to projection.
The Volvo software design team isn't responsible for fixing electronics bugs, and maybe not even responsible for the presence or lack of physical buttons. They didn't even make the font - it was contracted to a design studio. I seriously doubt this effort distracted too much from fixing the other things people care about. Big companies do multiple things at once.
1.) Go back to actual buttons/dials (with the old font, please)
2.) Fix the comically bad horrifying electronics issues the new models have.
I'm afraid that legacy is long lost, Volvo is a very different company today than it used to be.
But it does exist, just isn't the same as it used to be, back in the "seat-belts is for everyone" era.
For a giant tablet with no buttons that never belonged on a dashboard. It is common knowledge that buttons are better for drivers. For a company supposedly focused on safety, they make their cars more dangerous for drivers by installing touchscreens and removing buttons.
Is it more cost-effective? Is it to have better control?
Is it for branding? (Although it does not appear unique/novel)
It’s not like it needs to solve something that isn’t addressed by other typefaces —at least I don’t see it. It’s not a radical departure from existing typefaces.
Issues I encountered: - The schedule for AC charging moves by 1 hour when DST changes. So someone thought let's ignore daylight saving times for that. - The app randomly says "could not start heating/cooling", but still started it. - The last few times, AC schedule and power limit were ignored by the car (so charged 16 A but the car said only 14 A allowed) - Randomly, the AC schedule is in a random timezone (like 7-9h lff), but just for one day. - Sound sometimes does not work, like at all. Reboot the center display helps, but takes a couple of minutes.
Most days, it feels like they don't drive their own cars.
Regardless, I think the font is somewhat nice.
I'm still on a AAOS 2.x release from 2023 and will not upgrade at this point.