EVs & Plant Transformation
Torslanda: Inside Volvo’s most ambitious factory transformation
Magnus Olsson has launched seven Volvo models. As Torslanda's plant manager, he now oversees the factory's most complex transformation, and makes the case that people, not machines, will determine whether Western manufacturing prevails.
Few plant managers in the premium automotive sector arrive in the role with Magnus Olsson's range of programme experience. His career at Volvo Cars has taken him through global quality management and then through seven consecutive vehicle line director assignments. He launched the V90. Then the XC60. Then Polestar 1 and Polestar 3, among others. Now he is overseeing the newly-launched EX60.
The breadth of that background matters, because the question he is now being asked to answer at Torslanda, is not just operational. It is also strategic, structural, and, by his own reckoning, unlike anything he has previously managed.
From vehicle line director to plant steward
“This is the most exciting thing. To run a plant that is so crucial for the company and to manage this seemingly random change is exhausting, interesting, and a huge responsibility. It's fantastic.”
In Olsson's usage, "random" captures in a single word the compound nature of what he is managing simultaneously: a new vehicle platform, a battery architecture built from the cell up, megacasting technology deployed for the first time in the plant's history, and the entire transition executed around a facility that continued producing Europe's best-selling premium SUV without interruption. The excitement is genuine. So, unmistakably - is the weight of it.
"It's amazing to get the responsibility to introduce so much new technology in a segment that will be so crucial. Crucial for the future and crucial to being in the right market spot at the right time. It's huge."
The timing, he believes, is not incidental to the strategy. It is the strategy.
Battery assembly and the insourcing imperative
The most consequential operational change at Torslanda is one that is invisible to most visitors and insufficiently acknowledged in coverage of the EX60's production launch. The insourcing of battery assembly, from raw prismatic cell to fully integrated structural pack, represents a fundamental shift in where the complexity of EV manufacture now sits within the production system.
To understand what this means in practice, Olsson draws a direct comparison with the XC60 PHEV's supply arrangement. "So if you take a XC60 PHEV, that battery is not a cell-to-pack battery system. It's essentially produced by a supplier. We basically get the batteries. And it's also much smaller, and isn’t integrated as smartly. We get it into the Southern part of the plant, it then goes to the line where we mount it in the new car."
There’s essentially a large structural space, which is filled with a structural battery in order to improve the rigidity and torsional stiffness of the vehicle
With the EX60, however, none of that applies. The process begins at the cell itself. Olsson says, "we get to set up everything else we do in the new shop. First, we take the battery cells and coat them to provide electrical insulation. Then, we assemble them into modular blocks. Next, we place those blocks into an in-house produced aluminium tray and weld them together with a busbar to achieve an 800-volt output. Finally, we install the cooling pack and add significant heat transfer material to ensure proper cooling."
The cells are prismatic in format. On the question of supply, Olsson says that although there are a few different standards of cells, the EX60 follows a prismatic cell format, with China's Sunwoda and CATL acting as the cell suppliers. The fully integrated architecture that results is not just a packaging decision. "Everything else is assembled and built into an integrated battery which integrates into the vehicle as part of the body," he says.
The structural consequences are direct and measurable. "So when you see the vehicle body in the body shop, you see that there’s essentially a large structural space, which is filled with a structural battery in order to improve the rigidity and torsional stiffness of the vehicle."
The battery, in other words, is not simply a module sitting inside the floor. It is a structural member of the vehicle, contributing directly to handling dynamics, centre of gravity and body stiffness in ways that a conventional bolt-on pack cannot match. These are handling gains with no engineering workaround. They exist precisely because Torslanda now builds the battery pack itself.
What megacasting does and does not change on the line
Megacasting has attracted considerable commentary, much of it centred on the large-format aluminium structures it produces and the part-count reductions it enables. What has received less attention is the more precise question of which stages of the production process it actually transforms, and which it leaves largely unchanged.
Olsson is clear on this. The impact is concentrated almost entirely in the body shop. "Because what you do is that you replace those hundreds of parts in the body shop. So basically we have taken away hundreds of robots in the body shop with megacasting." The assembly shop, however, receives a completed body structure regardless of how that structure was produced. "I don't, therefore, anticipate megacasting influencing the assembly shop."
The design-freedoms the technology unlocks are considerable. "So I'm sure you've seen that it gives freedom of design. You can do topology optimisation. Engineers love it because you can do all these CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) computations and you can optimise it.
"You can make it as stiff, or as strong, or as resilient as you want it, and so on." As the technology matures and structural integration deepens, Olsson sees the assembly process simplifying to the point of increasingly enhancing production.
On disadvantages, his answer is measured rather than dismissive. "It's more of a challenge because it's a new technology. And of course, it takes time to learn new technologies." The freedom that megacasting creates in design and optimisation does not come without a process learning curve, however, and he is careful not to minimise it. "I don't see a clear disadvantage, but I do see a challenge in mastering the process."
The reduction in body-shop robot count is significant beyond the capital cost. Fewer welding robots means fewer weld joints. Fewer joints means fewer potential failure points - and a simpler quality validation task. It is a simplification that compounds across every production sequence from that point forward.
The discipline of learning before launching
One of the more instructive decisions in the EX60's development timeline was the choice to begin producing rear floor megacast sections at Torslanda approximately two years before the vehicle entered series production. The conventional development model relies on prototype parts built at small scale, often outside the intended production facility. It is cheaper and faster in the short term but delivers process-learning late, frequently too late to inform the decisions that have already been made.
Torslanda's approach departed from that convention deliberately, and the value of that early commitment is clear in how Olsson characterises the outcome. "We have been producing these for two years now - and although not at max capacity - all the prototype cars and everything had already been produced, so that the rear floor has been produced here at Torslanda, and supplied to all pilot plants. This approach, in starting the process early, has been very beneficial for us."
The benefit extends beyond Torslanda's own production ramp. The plant is now the global reference facility for the SPA 3 platform, and the operational knowledge accumulated over two years of early production positions it to support the next facility to adopt the same technology.
So far we have only decided to further invest in megacasting in Košice, in Slovakia. We will be the first using the SPA 3 platform, while the Slovakia plant will be the second. And of course being on the same platform, we have the opportunity to support them in that
Casting from Sweden to Slovakia
Olsson is definitive about the location of the second deployment., saying, "so far, we have only decided to further invest in megacasting in Košice, in Slovakia. Regarding the operational relationship between the two sites, he notes: "We will be the first using the SPA 3 platform, while the Slovakia plant will be the second. And of course being on the same platform, we have the opportunity to support them in that."
While the mother-plant model is an automotive industry standard, Volvo's execution for the EX60 deviates sharply from conventional timelines. Investing a two-year lead time exclusively into process learning prior to commercial launch is a radical departure from standard product development. This timeline represents a high-stakes strategic commitment to master a volatile new manufacturing process under controlled conditions, eliminating the risk of discovering critical tolerances under the duress of live production.
The 6,500-person competitive thesis
But there is a more substantive argument running beneath the technology narrative at Torslanda, and it is one Olsson returns to with a consistency that suggests it is not a prepared talking-point but a genuine operating conviction. It concerns people.
Torslanda employs around 6,500. The plant is regarded as a sought-after employer, and the standards it sets reflect that positioning. This matters, in Olsson's argument, not because it makes recruitment easier but because it creates a reservoir of engineering-adjacent competence that most plants fail to access.
"What I believe we have done differently here from a competence perspective, is that we have some managers helping us prioritise things like lean thinking and early involvement. So this could mean, and does, taking people directly from production and involving them directly with the engineers."
The conclusion he draws from this is pointed. "So naturally, they are a source of a lot of production competence. And if we free up this competence and move them into engineering, many of them may turn out ot be actually smarter and even know more than some engineers, because they have seen how it works in reality. And I believe that if we get them working together - that is how we can get Western world to compete."
The mechanism through which this is operationalised is a structured lean programme. "We have something called Standby 2.0., where we decouple three members per shift (because we run three shifts 24/7). They get Kaizen-lead training for two to three weeks. They then work to establish new standards in improving safety, quality and delivery."
The reported results are striking. Olsson reveals that during cross-functional Friday morning reviews with executive management, breakthroughs are routine: “we can see improvement areas of 30%."
The geopolitical stakes driving Volvo's operational overhaul are immense. Western automakers face an existential threat from hyper-efficient, fast-moving global competitors, rendering traditional manufacturing metrics obsolete. For Olsson, surviving this shift requires utilising the one asset that cannot be bought or automated: people. It is a fundamental pivot from capital expenditure to cultural empowerment.
"How can Western world make sure we are competitive globally?,” he says. “What we can influence is how we work and capitalise on skills. Every investment, money, machines, are easy to look at and measure. But if we can untie the people, 6,500 people, if we can give them more engagement, more responsibility - that is where it happens. And this is why we work actively with lean, decoupled members from the line, enabling them to work with engineering and ultimately optimise workflow."
"For me, that is the answer of how we can compete."
AI as a human amplifier
The AI applications Olsson describes at Torslanda are notable as much for what they are not, as for what they are. They are not large, centralised automation programmes imposed from above. They are targeted, operationally grounded, and in at least one significant case, originated from the production floor rather than from engineering.
The scale of the quality monitoring challenge alone is instructive. "We have started to introduce visual systems with AI to see everything is mounted correctly. Each line - around 50 lines in assembly shop,” he says - “has a quality station at the end. And we are introducing camera and image recognition systems. But this does not remove people, it complements them."
The paint shop case is perhaps the more revealing of the two. "In paint shop, we also had another case,” he says. “When we do corrosion protection, the body goes through a rolling process in a bath - dipping, spinning, cleaning - multiple steps. To ensure electro-coating, doors, hoods and tailgates must be both open and fixed. It happens that sometimes, fixtures are lost. If one door opens during the process, the car is lost. And that is a heavy loss."
We would not have introduced megacasting into an existing product. It needs to be linked to new vehicles. Many companies need to consider where they are in their investment cycle, and if you have already invested in something, you can't invest in new technology as easily. We are fortunate on that front, because we have a completely new platform
The response came from within the production team. They proposed a simple detection technology to verify that fixtures are always secured before the bath cycle begins. "It is not expensive. When you introduce this type of technology, you open up innovation from people. Some things you can foresee, and some you cannot."
The philosophy underlying both examples is consistent, and Olsson is deliberate about its boundaries. He says that for Torslanda today, it is a complement to quality, production, security, and loss reduction. “That is where I see it today, but it may change." The qualification matters. What he is describing is not a trajectory towards full automation but a targeted use of technology to close specific quality and cost gaps, executed in a way that reinforces, rather than undermines the workforce's capacity for problem-solving.
Flexibility, refurbishment cycles and the long view
The structural case for megacasting's flexibility advantage rests on a dynamic that is not immediately obvious. Stamped body structures carry tooling lives measured in millions of cycles, which provides stability - but also rigidity. Major changes require long lead times and considerable capital commitment. "When we do the XC90 and XC60, we don't want to do a major change in body shop, or stamping shop, which takes too long and requires very heavy investment," says Olsson.
Megacasting's shorter tooling cycle alters that logic entirely. With refurbishment required at around 100,000 cycles, the intervals are a fraction of a vehicle's lifespan - months rather than years. "That is an opportunity because every refurbishment allows improvement. But with a cycle considerably shorter than the lifespan of a car, maybe one year, half a year, instead of seven to ten years, I can introduce improvements. So if we use that in the right way, it will be an enabler for flexibility. Absolutely."
On scalability, Olsson is clear that the technology's reach is determined by business logic rather than engineering constraints. "There is no limitation,” he says. “If you take the rear floor, it doesn't matter if it's in the XC90 or the XC40. It's not the size that determines this. It's the business case behind it. It's volume, where the plant is in the investment cycle."
That framing carries an important corollary: "We would not have introduced megacasting into an existing product. It needs to be linked to new vehicles. Many companies need to consider where they are in their investment cycle, and if you have already invested in something, you can't invest in new technology as easily. We are fortunate on that front, because we have a completely new platform."
Asked whether megacasting will become standard practice across OEMs within a decade, Olsson says that, clearly, that is Volvo’s own judgement. Carmakers who vest in this technology view it in the long term and don’t undergo such investment if you they don’t believe it to be so.
“It will change automotive manufacturing in general, pretty certainly," he says. On whether the technology could displace significant numbers of body component suppliers, though. the caution is deliberate. "That’s hard to predict,” he says. “Of course, it changes part of the value chain, but we need to see the next steps. I can speculate, but not predict."
The wider argument Olsson has been advancing throughout: that a Western European manufacturing base can remain competitive, not by replicating the cost structures of lower-wage economies, but by doing what those economies cannot easily replicate in return.
The total investment in the Torslanda transformation - SEK 10 billion (approximately $1.1 billion), spanning megacasting capability, battery assembly, a refurbished paint shop and a fully upgraded assembly line - is not broken down by individual technology.
Whether the return is validated in output quality, cost efficiency and production flexibility will determine not only the commercial trajectory of the EX60 but the persuasiveness of the wider argument Olsson has been advancing throughout: that a Western European manufacturing base can remain competitive, not by replicating the cost structures of lower-wage economies, but by doing what those economies cannot easily replicate in return.
Operational expertise built over years of production-representative learning, a workforce operating at the boundary of production and engineering, and a lean culture disciplined enough to find 30% improvement areas in pre-lunch, Friday morning meeting. That commitment is the part rather harder to put a number on - and, in Olsson's assessment, rather more likely to be decisive.
