Volvo Car Gent (until 2007 known as Volvo Cars Europe Industry N.V.) is an

automobile manufacturer The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industry ...

located in the port district of Ghent/Gent in western Belgium. By about 2013 the Ghent plant had become the Volvo plant manufacturing most cars. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Swedish automaker Volvo Personvagnar AB (Volvo Cars). It is owned by Volvo Car Belgium NV. Its activities comprise welding, painting and final assembly. The plant became the only car manufacturing plant in Flanders after Ford Genk closed at the end of 2014. The plant opened in 1965. It was the first European Volvo plant outside Sweden. The Ghent location was chosen because it was centrally positioned within the

EEC The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

and was supported by a good transport infrastructure. The first Volvo produced in Ghent was the company’s 120 Series (120/121/122, later 130), also known as Amazon. In September 2012 the plant was producing the

Volvo C30 The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

, Volvo V40,

Volvo S60 The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

and

Volvo XC60 The Volvo XC60 is a compact luxury crossover SUV manufactured and marketed by Swedish automaker Volvo Cars since 2008. The XC60 is part of Volvo's 60 Series of automobiles, along with the S60, S60 Cross Country, V60, and V60 Cross Country. ...

models, of which the XC60 was the top seller, thanks in part to tax advantages available in certain key markets for the DRIVe version. In 2011 the company was hoping to match the 258,000 units of output achieved in 2005, the plant’s top production year till that point. In 2015 the Ghent plant employed about 5,400 people. Volvo Car Gent produced 252,479 cars (XC60, V40 and S60) in 2015. In 2017 Volvo Car Gent started to produce the first new vehicle on the CMA platform (Compact Modular Architecture), the XC40.https://www.tijd.be/ondernemen/auto/Gent-profiteert-van-succes-nieuwe-Volvo-XC40/997055 In 2020, the Ghent plant began to produce Volvo's first mass-market electric car, the XC40 Recharge. In 2021, the electric-only C40 began production at Gent. The city of Ghent is also home to a Volvo truck plant. This plant is part of Volvo Group Belgium and, apart from the Volvo brand name, is no longer linked to the car activities in Belgium. This plant was formerly known as Volvo Europa Truck. In November 2016 the 6th million car was produced.

Name

The plant's name is ''Volvo Car Gent'' and not ''Volvo Cars Ghent''. It is a proper name in which the city name is in its original Dutch spelling, not in English.

References

External links

volvocargent.be
(Dutch, French & English)
volvocars.com
(Global)
Volvo Car Gent N.V. on WikiMapia
{{Volvo cars Ghent Volvo Cars Volvo factories Motor vehicle assembly plants in Belgium Companies based in East Flanders Industrial buildings completed in 1965 1965 establishments in Belgium