(Yicai) Dec. 12 -- Swedish automaker Volvo Cars, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, has adjusted its Chinese arm management team and accelerate its electric vehicle transition.

Roger Yu, vice president of Volvo Car Sales China, will step in as acting president from Jan. 1, the Gothenburg-based firm told Yicai yesterday. He will report to Yuan Xiaolin, senior vice president of Volvo and president and chief executive for the Asia-Pacific region, it added.

Yu, who joined Volvo in 2015, has over 20 years of experience in the auto sector and will replace Martin Persson, who will be made head of Volvo’s Asia-Pacific business operations, excluding China. Persson moved from Japan in August to succeed Qin Peiji after he went to work at Geely.

According to Volvo, the personnel changes will speed up its shift to EVs, which will be sped up next year with new models coming to the market. Rotating managers at key positions at this crucial time will help cross-regional communication within the company and enhance its capacity building, it noted.

Volvo plans to transform all of its models into EVs by 2025, with half being battery EVs and the rest hybrids. It sold 13,641 EVs in China in the first 11 months of this year, far behind its goal and accounting for only 9 percent of its total sales in the country.

According to market insiders, friction between Volvo and Geely led to the personnel change in August. Yuan rebutted this at the time, noting that Geely has a majority stake in Volvo and there is no fight for control.

Geely will sell about 3.3 percent of its 82 percent stake in Volvo for USD350 million, it announced on Nov. 16. The proceeds will be used to support the global development of the Hangzhou-based carmaker’s affiliated brands, it added.

Geely acquired all of Volvo for USD1.8 billion in 2010 and the Swedish carmaker went public on the Nasdaq Stockholm in 2021. After the listing, Geely gradually pared its shareholding.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev