Well, now we know why Jim Rowan is no longer at Volvo

This month is the last month the Volvo V90 will be made. The estate car will be officially declared dead as of October first and there is no successor in sight. At least, not yet.

Motor1.com takes it even one step further and suggests Volvo, or rather Chinese owner Geely, is stepping away from the estate car as a whole. The car giant would be in favor of the SUV as a replacement. Case in point would be the Volvo XC70 'Long Range PHEV' that the Swedish car brand introduced in China just a couple of days ago. That car, which off course is a SUV, bears the name of a long gone, almost legendary rugged estate car.

The final nail in the coffin of the Volvo estate cars would be something ex-CEO Jim Rowan had hinted at. Shortly after the introduction of the ES90, which is neither an estate nor a sedan, but a 'lift back', Rowan told AutoCar that the form factor of the ES90 was the future. In his eyes it has the same functionality as a station, without any of the drawbacks.

I'm now guessing this statement has killed Rowans career at Volvo. Simply hinting at the death of the most beloved car shape in Sweden, or the whole of Europe for that matter, would probably not go over well at the company. I don't know if you've ever been to the Nordic countries, but if you'd play a game of 'drink a shot when you spot a sedan shape' on a drive from Gothenburg to Stockholm, you'd arrive in the capitol without touching that bottle of 'Golden Potato'.

Off course, many of you would say Rowan got the boot because of his focus on software, which didn't really pan out as well as he'd probably hoped. The EX90 as a shiny example of the problems the car brand couldn't tackle under Rowans reign. But I still think he was on the right path. He had good idea's and was a nice man, at least to me when I met him at the launch of the ES90.

But in all seriousness, can you see Volvo killing the station wagon? I mean, picture a Volvo in your head right now. It's an estate right? Killing that form factor would probably kill the whole brand image. And, maybe more importantly, it would probably give Heritage Manager Hans Hedberg at Volvo Cars a heart attack. And we wouldn't want that nice man to have a heart attack, now would we.

But times are changing, especially at Volvo, which is increasingly feeling the influence of the Chinese mothership. And that means the estate car could really be killed, if Geely thinks the European market is of lesser importance than the US and Chinese markets combined. The fact is that in those markets nobody seems to want an estate car anymore.

Sales numbers have been decreasing in the US for years to the point car manufacturers mostly decide to not ship estates to the land of the free anymore. And the same thing is apparently happening in China too, where people tend to opt for SUV's or at least crossovers, with the Volvo ES90 as a good example of a car made for China which is also being released in Europe to see if the 'lift back' shape could be a hit here too.

Personally, I'd rather not see the estate go, especially not to be replaced by SUV's. I don't particularly care for the huge vehicles and like the lower and more efficient estates better. To me, that shape offers the best of what the car industry has to offer. Estates offer enough room to move several Billy Ikea closets, while weighing at lot less than SUV's which would offer the same storage space and therefore need a lot less gasoline or electricity to get said Billy home. All while offering a better driving experience.

In other news:

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll probably have at least caught a whiff of rumors about new cars being shown in Munich this weekend. I'll be checking out the new iX3 50 which BMW will be presenting on Friday and be missing out on the new Audi R8TT-thing, which looks like a weird metal capsule of which I can't really decide if I like it or not. And Hyundai will probably be showing off an Ioniq 3 with Apple CarPlay Ultra?

VW's design boss Andreas Mindt seems to have woken up to the idea that cars sell if people like them, not if they think they're ugly and shitty to drive. So he came to the conclusion that it would be better to start building EV's that people actually like. Mindt confessed VW made mistakes and fundamental design flaws, and explains that the brand has learned from them. We'll just have to wait and see what that means.

Being unapologetic in design proved the right direction for Kia. The brand is doing great, especially on the EV-market, where customers really seem to like the straight lines and unique shapes. With multiple sales records for multiple models earned, the expectations for the coming EV5 are high, very high.