沃尔沃为中国打造“三座版”豪车

In China, the front seat takes a back seat, as Volvo’s Thomas Ingenlath discovered when the carmaker’s Chinese chairman tested a vehicle he helped design.

在中国，本应该坐在前座上的人往往坐在后排。这是沃尔沃(Volvo)的托马斯•英根拉特(Thomas Ingenlath)在该汽车制造商的中国董事长试乘一辆由他帮助设计的汽车时发现的。

Instead of going to the driver’s side and trying out the steering wheel, Li Shufu walked around the car, opening the opposite side rear door. The back seat was where a man of Mr Li’s stature was used to seeing the world, with someone else driving. “That tells you where the priorities are,” says Mr Ingenlath, Volvo’s chief designer. “The focus is not on the driver’s seat, but on the other areas of the car . . . that completely changed our perspective.”

李书福没有坐上驾驶座去试一下方向盘，而是绕着汽车走过去，打开了右后门。像李书福这种身份的人习惯于坐在后排的位置看世界，由其他人来开车。

Since being bought by Mr Li’s Geely Corporation in 2010, Sweden-based Volvo has become a case study in having to adapt western designs for Chinese consumers, who in Volvo’s case are also the group’s owners. But the global automotive industry has been working towards pleasing Chinese customers since at least 2009, when China became the world’s largest market for cars.

“你从这件事上可以知道，侧重点该放在哪，”沃尔沃的总设计师英根拉特表示，“重点不在于驾驶座，而是车内的其他区域……这完全改变了我们的观点。”

“It’s not about taste, it’s about how people actually use the car in their daily lives,” says Mr Ingenlath, who was attending the Shanghai Auto Show last month. “Having chairman Li taught us a lesson there. He approaches a car unlike any European chief executive.”

自从2010年被李书福的吉利汽车(Geely Auto Corporation)收购后，总部位于瑞典的沃尔沃便成了针对中国消费者(对于沃尔沃来说，中国人也是该集团的所有者)调整西方设计的案例研究素材。但至少自2009年中国成为世界最大的汽车市场以来，全球汽车业便一直努力取悦中国用户。

While in the west having a chauffeur is an expensive anachronism, they are more common in China, where even middle-class working families can afford them. This has meant a new definition of luxury that the world’s carmakers have had to reckon with.

“这与品味无关，而是关于人们在日常生活中实际上如何使用汽车，”英根拉特上月参加上海车展(Shanghai Auto Show)时表示，“李董事长给我们上了一课。他使用汽车的方式不同于欧洲的首席执行官。”

Volvo has two principle long wheelbase cars in the China market and both have done well, the company says. The S90 long wheelbase was only launched last December but sales of 2,200 units in the first quarter have outstripped those of its predecessor, the S80L.

尽管在西方拥有司机是一件昂贵而过时的事，但这在中国比较常见，甚至中产阶级工薪家庭也有可能请得起司机。这意味着全世界的汽车制造商不得不考虑关于奢侈的新定义。

BMW says the 5 Series and the 1 Series sedans produced at its plants in Shenyang have extra room in the back, along with other China-specific features: beefed-up air filters for Chinese urban pollution and 20mm of extra seat cushioning and stronger suspension.

沃尔沃表示，它在中国市场有两款主要的长轴距车型，两款车的市场表现都很好。S90长轴距轿车于去年12月才推出，但该车型在第一季度销量为2200辆，已经超过了老款S80L的表现。

Volvo has also found a niche market in the US for the long wheelbase version of the S60 sedan, which was made for China. Last year the company sold more than 35,000 units of that car globally, which is more than half of total S60 volume in 2016. “It’s not a completely new car, but it’s a significant industrial difference to the US and European models,” says Johan Karlber, Shanghai-based Partner of Roland Berger

沃尔沃也为S60长轴距版轿车在美国找到了小众市场。该款车型原本是为中国市场打造。去年该款车型的全球销量超过3.5万辆，占全年S60总销量的一半以上。“这并不是全新车型，但它与美国和欧洲款在工艺上存在显著差异，”咨询机构罗兰贝格(Roland Berger)常驻上海的合伙人约翰•卡尔贝(Johan Karlber)表示。

In pushing Chinese tastes to their logical conclusion, Volvo has arrived at a three-seat version — the co-driver’s seat is too low in status to exist in a high-end lifestyle. Zhenhao Wu, senior director at Volvo, says the three-seat Volvo S90 Excellence “is specially designed for customers with higher social status and financial position”.

沃尔沃根据中国人的喜好来得出符合逻辑的结论，并据此推出了三座版轿车——副驾驶座位的地位太低，在高端生活方式中并无存在必要。沃尔沃高级总监吴震皓表示，沃尔沃S90的三座荣誉版(S90 Excellence)“专门为拥有较高社会地位、财务状况较好的客户设计”。