Volvo Cars’ factory in Ridgeville, South Carolina, is running at about 20% of its 150,000-vehicle annual capacity, according to Autoblog’s November 4 report on the company’s third-quarter commentary. The plant opened in 2018 and currently assembles the EX90 electric SUV and the Polestar 3. Volvo’s own executives now describe an American market where profit is hard to find, and the quiet assembly line is the clearest physical sign of it.
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Twenty percent of 150,000 works out to roughly 30,000 cars a year, or about 2,500 a month, from a facility that cost $1.2 billion to build and drew more than $200 million in public incentives. Volvo sold 23,766 vehicles in the United States during the third quarter alone, so the Ridgeville plant supplies only a slice of what the brand moves in this country. The best seller, the XC60, still arrives from Sweden and China rather than from South Carolina, and that gap is the core of Volvo’s problem.
Ridgeville’s 150,000-car capacity and the cars it builds
The utilization figure comes from Autoblog’s account of Volvo’s quarterly communications, which says the plant runs at 20% of a 150,000-vehicle yearly capacity, will add the XC60, and is slated to receive a next-generation hybrid by the end of the decade. Volvo’s third-quarter report, published October 23, puts dates on part of that plan: XC60 production moves to Charleston in the first quarter of 2027, and a second all-new car is to be localized in the United States by the end of the decade.
Low utilization is not a new condition at the site. A South Carolina Daily Gazette report from July 2025 cited industry estimates of about 13% utilization at the 2.3-million-square-foot plant, recorded the EX90’s slow start at 7,797 sales worldwide in the first half of 2025, and noted a $1.2 billion impairment tied to tariff costs and electric-vehicle delays. Luis Rezende, president of Volvo Cars Americas, called the XC60 the right car for this market when the move was announced, and the same report said the model accounts for nearly two-thirds of Volvo’s U.S. sales. Autoblog adds that the Polestar 3, the other car on the line, ends production after the 2026 model year.
Third-quarter U.S. sales, tariffs and a CAFE credit writedown
Volvo’s own American numbers explain the empty floor space. The Volvo Car USA sales release reports 23,766 vehicles for the third quarter, down 8.7% from 26,021 a year earlier. Electrified models, a category that includes fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars, fell 12.9% to 7,385 and made up 31% of the total. Fully electric sales dropped 41.1% to 1,787, plug-in hybrids rose 2.8% to 5,598, and mild hybrids slid 6.6% to 16,381. Rezende credited the core SUV lineup, noting that the XC90 and XC60 both grew for a second straight quarter.
The financial picture at group level is harsher. Volvo reported third-quarter revenue of SEK 66.9 billion, down from SEK 86.4 billion a year earlier, and an operating loss of SEK 5.6 billion. The company cited tariffs and the removal of U.S. consumer incentives for electrified cars, plus a SEK 1.1 billion negative revaluation of CAFE credits caused by legislative changes. CEO Hakan Samuelsson described a very tough environment with strong external challenges and said the turnaround plan needs additional decisive actions. According to Autoblog, he also admitted Volvo misjudged how tariffs would hit its American business and said the company must localize more in the U.S.
EX30 and EX40 exits, a sub-$40,000 EV and the Polestar gap
Product changes follow the same logic. Autoblog reports that the EX30 and EX40, Volvo’s cheapest electric models, end in the U.S. after the 2026 model year, and that Volvo has promised a new global EV for the American market from 2027 with a base price under $40,000. Long-range plug-in hybrid versions of the XC90 and XC60 are being fast-tracked, and Volvo’s report says deliveries begin in Europe this year and in the U.S. shortly afterward. The company has also split the U.S. into four regions to speed decisions, a structural change aimed at the same sales slump.
The mood among executives is blunter than the press-release language. Autoblog, citing Automotive News, quotes Chief Commercial Officer Erik Severinson saying the U.S. has proven to be a difficult market in which to find profitability, and describing consumer sentiment as being at a 50-year low. Volvo’s investor relations staff had framed the demand problem earlier in the year: on a March pre-close call they noted the removal of the electric-vehicle incentive and said past subsidy removals took a few quarters for the market to normalize, while citing a University of Michigan sentiment reading of 56.6 in February against 64.7 a year earlier.
What fills Ridgeville’s other 80% remains unanswered. Autoblog notes that Samuelsson said earlier this year that Volvo was willing to open the plant to other automakers, and its report names no taker. With the Polestar 3 ending, the XC60 not due until early 2027 and Polestar barred from U.S. sales starting that year, the plant’s output through 2026 rests almost entirely on the EX90, which sold fewer than 8,000 units worldwide in the first half of 2025.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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