This is the third episode from my visit at Lotus Cars and their facility in Hethel in Norwich England.  This time you will meet the head of design Russel Carr. He will tell you about the importance of Lotus design and especially about the story behind the new hypercar from Lotus the Evija.  I will also talk with Matt Windle about engineering and David Hewitt about manufacturing of today’s hand built Lotus sportscar.

I’m back with the second episode from my visit at Lotus Cars October 2019 and their facility in Hethel in Norwich England. This time you will meet Clive Chapman, son to the legendary founder of Lotus Cars Colin Chapman and Gavan Kershaw that is responsible for handling and performance of today’s Lotus sports car.

Welcome to Garaget International! 

I visited Lotus Cars in their facilities in Hethel, Norwich England in mid-October where the legendary engineer genius Colin Chapman founded Lotus Cars more than 70 years ago. An amazing place. Lotus is now a part of the Geely group and I was so interested to understand what that has meant for the brand and the company and how the future looks like. This is the first episode in a series of episodes from Lotus Cars. In this first episode I meet with Geoff Dowding director of sales and Simon Clare director for Global marketing. Welcome to Garaget International! 

In this episode you will meet Joe Lin and Jerker Andersson.

They are both winner of the 2018th Shufu Award, founded by Geelys chairman Li Shufu.

Their backgrounds differ a lot but there are also similarities. They have made great achievements for the Geely group and they are both passionate about their work. 

We talk about what made them winner of the award and what it has meant for them to receive this achievement. Welcome to Garaget International! 

Niclas Anderson is Director for Supplier quality for Volvos and Lynk&Co’s small platform, CMA.  His workplace is CEVT in Gothenburg and his job is to secure the quality for all components within the region of Europe.

But the success of his work is depending on that he can work together with people from China and Europe and from Geely and Volvo and suppliers from all over the world.

We talk about what the challenges are and what opportunity this gives him in his daily work. Welcome to Garaget International! 

I meet two of the co-workers at Volvo Cars innovation lab in a cool office in the city centre of Gothenburg earlier this spring.  It was Lotta Ahlberg and old friend with a mixed history from Volvo Cars from Innovation support and Ergonomics and Paul Aston a fresh Volvo employee with a background as tech designer with a lot of experience from the non-automotive business.

LABS has been in operation for less then two years and they have a mission to innovate new business for Volvo cars. Some ideas is soon reaching real customers and some are still only ideas. Join our conversion and get inspired!

Welcome to celebrate the one hundred episodes of this podcast. We recorded it in front of a live audience for the first time. Anna Margitin, Board member of Volvo Car group and union leader was co-host for this anniversary. Culture was on the agenda and we had a very interesting guest on board; Lex Kerssemakers SVP and responsible for Direct Consumer Business at Volvo Car. He is a passionate advocate of a strong company culture and has recently been out in social media in this matter. And as a bonus you get the song from the eighties “The spirit of Volvo” in the end of this episode. Warm welcome to join us in this historically episode.

Peter Horbury is more or less synonym with Geely Design that started as a seed six years ago with less than 10 people. They have now grown to a global design organisation present on three different continents with more than 900 employees.

Peter and I meet at his office in Lindholmen, Gothenburg and spoke about the incredible success for Geely Auto and the part that Design has played. Geely Design is now responsible for the design of next generation Lotus cars and this is sort of dream coming true for Peter. We also talk about possible synergies in the Geely group and how we can learn from each other. Welcome to the conversation.

Håkan Samuelsson is a recurring guest in Garaget. This time we talk about the challenges in today’s tougher business environment and how to meet them in a constructive way. He wants to stimulate job rotation and use the potential in all employees in order to increase efficiency. More focus to group around a challenge and a mission and less on boxes and a firm organization. Håkan is also convinced that Volvo need new ways to reach consumers but that today’s retailers has to be part of the new infrastructure.  Electrification and autonomous drive is also focus area’s for Volvo that we cover in our dialog. Welcome to Garaget International!

Thomas Ingenlath is the CEO and the incarnation of Polestar, the new car brand in the Geely group.  We meet in Polestars new office “The cube” in Torslanda Gothenburg a bright Saturday morning and had a very relaxed talk about where Polestar is today and where the company is heading for the future. It’s a new company with a new unique culture but with very close bonds with its parent’s Volvo Cars and Geely. Polestar just launched its second car Polestar 2 that is a pure electric car with ambitions to compete with cars like the Tesla model 3. But for Thomas this is only the beginning. He sees lots of opportunities for the future and I quote him: “The sky is the limit!” Welcome to Garaget International!

In this episode you will meet Carl-Peter Forster. He has an impressing experience and CV from more than 30 years in the car business. He has worked for BMW, has been the president for GM-Europe, CEO for the Tata-group including Jaguar and Land Rover and much more. He has also been a member of Volvo Cars Board more since early 2013 and is now leaving that position. He share his thoughts about what made the turn around of Volvo Cars possible and how to meet future challenges. He praise the Volvo engineers and there importance for the success. We discuss the impact and influence from Geely as owner and what that has meant for Volvo Cars and what opportunities it will give Volvo for the future. Welcome to Garaget International!

In this episode you will meet the director for MobilityXlab Katarina Brud. MobilityXlab is situated in the heart of the mobility cluster in Lindholmen Gothenburg and is a place where tech startups can accelerate their development by accessing competence from leading mobility experts. MobilityXlab was launched during the fall 2017 and the partners is CEVT, Ericsson, Veoneer, Volvo Cars, Volvo Group & Zenuity. The initiative is hosted by Lindholmen Science Park. Welcome to Garaget International!

In this episode you will meet Gang Wei. Hi is responsible for the new Geely Innovation Center that is under construction in Gothenburg.

This innovation centre will be a landmark in the middle of the mobility cluster at Lindholmen in Gothenburg with room for more than three thousand engineers, designers and researchers and innovators when its ready 2022.

Listen to Gang and his vision and thoughts about this exciting project that invites start-ups and innovators to join Geely’s journey to be one of the global leaders in tomorrow’s mobility landscape.

Welcome to Garaget International.

In this episode you will meet Mats Fägerhag CEO in CEVT, China Euro Vehicle Tecnology, owned by the Chinese company Geely, the same company that owns Volvo Cars since 2010.

CEVT is a rather new automotive engineering company with it’s base in the heart of the mobility cluster at Lindholmen in Gotheburg, today with more then 2000 employees.

CEVT has made an incredible journey since the start 2013 and Mats freely share his experience trough the last five years.

Welcome to this exciting episode!