(April 3): Volvo Car AB must make more vehicles — including another model — at its South Carolina factory after US President Donald Trump raised tariffs on imported autos, its chief executive officer said.

“We will have to increase the number of cars we build in the US, and surely move another model to that factory,” CEO Håkan Samuelsson said in an interview on Thursday. Volvo already builds EX90 and Polestar 3 electric vehicles at its plant near Charleston and “will have to look closely” at what other model it will add to production lines, he said.

Volvo lured back Samuelsson, 74, to retake the CEO job starting this month from Jim Rowan, his short-lived successor. Under Rowan, a car industry outsider who’d previously led Dyson Ltd, Volvo was forced to temper sales and profit expectations and scrap a target to sell only fully electric vehicles (EVs) by the end of the decade.

Trump’s 25% tariff on US auto imports that took effect shortly after midnight in Washington is expected to dramatically increase costs and upend supply chains. Certain car parts also face an equivalent levy no later than May 3 under a plan Trump announced last week.

Volvo opened the South Carolina plant — its first in the US — in 2018. Months after starting production, the company cancelled plans to ship sedans built there to China due to tariffs the countries imposed during Trump’s first term.

Later on Thursday, Samuelsson said that Volvo needs to act swiftly to move some production to the US. “We need to learn from the Chinese how to localise,” he told shareholders at the annual general meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Samuelsson, previously CEO for a decade until 2022, is tasked with reviving Volvo’s share price, which fell 66% over Rowan’s three-year tenure. “My job is to regain investors’ confidence,” Samuelsson said. He will present a turnaround plan in the coming weeks, the CEO added.

Chairman Li Shufu, the billionaire behind Volvo’s majority owner Geely, said that since Volvo’s 2021 Stockholm listing, the world has undergone “tremendous changes”, with higher trade barriers. It was Li’s first public appearance since Volvo listed in Stockholm in 2021.

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