Hur ser framtiden ut för bilindustrin och hur väl är Volvo Cars redo för framtiden? : En djupdykning i bilindustrins framtida utmaningar utifrån ett forsknings- och utvecklingsperspektiv

Sammanfattning: Background: The global car industry is going through a process of change where the traditional car companies are being challenged. It is essential for those companies to keep up with the changing market conditions and invest in research and development, if they want to remain competitive in the future market. Volvo Cars is a prominent car manufacturer in Sweden, but is small globally. It was, therefore, adjudged as an interesting company to research with respect to how they address the aforementioned challenges.  Purpose: With an understanding and focus on the car industry’s new challenges, the purpose of this study is to investigate and illustrate Volvo Cars’ future prospective on the global car market. Method: The study has combined quantitative and qualitative approaches, viewed from an inductive perspective. Qualitative interviews were performed to obtain a deeper understanding of the car industry’s challenges, and data from secondary sources were collected in order to quantify Volvo Cars’ performance relative to other car companies. Result: The study determined the main challenges for the future of the personal vehicle sector to be: automation, environment, changing customer demand and digitalization. In addition to the innovation-based challenges mentioned above, the expanding Chinese market has been identified as a challenge for car companies to capitalise on. The expansion of the Chinese market is due to the rapidly increasing middle class, combined with a low car density. The idea that China (and the rest of Asia) will become an important future market is supported by the opinions of many experts and interview respondents who believe that car density in the western world will decline which means strengthen the importance of China as a future market. Volvo Cars face the same challenges as other car manufacturers. However, given their small global significance, Volvo Cars will need to focus and appropriately allocate their resources on only one or two challenges. In terms of investing in research and development, Volvo Cars is at the forefront, with a significant portion of their revenue being dedicated to the area. Conclusion: Given Volvo Cars’ small global significance, they will not have the ability to focus on all challenges. Instead, they must focus their research and development on a select few areas to be able to compete in the future automotive market. This study has identified three major challenges for Volvo Cars: to successfully grow in China (as well as in the rest of Asia), to increase total sales and market share, and to advance within automation and electrical operation. Given that Volvo Cars continue increasing their sales, especially in China, while simultaneously investing in research and development aimed at automation and electric drive, the researchers believe that the future of Volvo Cars is very promising.