He’s not an executive, a company spokesperson, or a world-class researcher. But he might be Google’s secret weapon in winning the AI race.
If you’re an AI developer, you’ve likely heard of Logan Kilpatrick. As Google’s head of developer relations, Kilpatrick, 27, runs AI Studio, the company’s AI developer software program.
He has also become Google’s delegate for speaking to the AI community and — intentionally or not — a one-man marketing machine for the company’s AI products. He’s a prolific poster on X, where he’ll sometimes hype Google’s latest Gemini releases or tease something new on the horizon.
Above all, he is one of the people tasked with translating Google’s AI breakthroughs to the global developer community. It’s a crucial job at a time when the search giant needs to not just convince developers to use its products, but capture a new generation of builders entering the fray as AI makes it easier for anyone to make software.
“If you want AI to have the level of impact on humanity that I think it could have, you need to be able to provide a platform for developers in order to go and do this stuff,” he told Business Insider in an interview. “The reality is there’s a thousand and one things that Google is never going to build, and doesn’t make sense for us to build, that developers want to build.”
Company insiders say Google has recognized Kilpatrick’s strength and given him more responsibilities and visibility. He could be seen onstage at this year’s Google I/O conference and even had a fireside chat with Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
“People really crave legitimacy, authenticity, and competency, and Logan combines all three,” Asara Near, a startup founder who has occasionally contacted Kilpatrick with development questions, told BI.
In 2022, OpenAI was preparing to launch ChatGPT and fire the starting gun on one of history’s most profound technological shifts. Kilpatrick, who has a technical background and worked at Apple and NASA, saw an online job ad for OpenAI and was soon facing a tricky decision: to work at what was then Sam Altman’s little-known startup, or take a gig at IBM.
He decided that OpenAI was worth a shot — and within a few months, found himself at the center of the biggest tech launch since the debut of the iPhone in 2007.
“The OpenAI experience was a startup experience for about six months and then it became basically a hyperscaler,” he told BI. It was chaotic, but it helped Kilpatrick learn how to build an ecosystem and cut his teeth as the developers’ go-to guy. There, developers nicknamed him “LoganGPT.”
Brett A. Sims
When he left OpenAI in 2024 for Google, developers and peers made clear it was a huge loss for the ChatGPT maker, and a big win for Google in the AI talent transfer window. AI Studio was then still a project inside Google’s Labs division, and Kilpatrick and his team were tasked with migrating it into a fully-fledged product inside Google’s Cloud unit. It was again like going from zero to one: AI Studio was pre-revenue with no customers, but with a long tail of developers ready to jump on board.
“It has felt oddly almost like the same exact experience I’ve lived through at two different companies and two different cultures,” he told BI.
In May this year, Kilpatrick was promoted, and his team running AI Studio was moved from the Cloud unit to Google DeepMind, bringing them closer to the researchers working on the underlying models and the employees working on its Gemini chatbot.
“He’s kind of all over the place, and that’s his superpower,” said one senior employee who requested anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the media. They said that Google has put Kilpatrick in charge of more products as leaders have recognized his ability to engage so effectively with the developer community. “Logan is 90% of Google’s marketing,” they said.
On paper, Google is an AI winner. The reality is more complicated.
Its latest Gemini 2.0 Pro model ranks top of multiple leaderboards across a range of testing areas, but this hasn’t always been reflected in the number of users. Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said in May that the company’s Gemini app has more than 400 million monthly active users. That’s well behind the 500 million weekly active users for ChatGPT, according to figures shared by Altman in April.
“DeepMind doesn’t get nearly as much credit and attention as they deserve, and that’s because comms is vastly underperforming capabilities,” communications executive Lulu Meservey posted on X in May. Responding to another person, she wrote: “Logan is like 90% of their comms.”
Some of the struggle, insiders say, is due to Google owning multiple products that aren’t always clearly distinct. Developers can build using Vertex in Google Cloud or AI Studio. Meanwhile Google has a consumer-facing app simply called Gemini. The same models aren’t necessarily always available across all three places at the same time, which can get confusing for users and developers.
There’s also the problem of being a quarter-century-old tech behemoth with more nimble startups nipping at its heels. “OpenAI can put all their messaging arrows behind one thing, while Google has messaging arrows behind 10,000 things,” former Google product manager Rajat Paharia told BI.
Google/Ryan Trostle
Kilpatrick recognizes that Google has work to do. “I think Google on a net basis is doing so much in the world right now, and AI is around everything that we’re doing, and I think a lot of narrative doesn’t capture innovation is happening,” he said.
A big part of Kilpatrick’s job is trying to cement that narrative among the global developer base. At OpenAI, Sam Altman’s Jobsian showmanship has made him a highly effective salesman both for his company’s products and his vision for the future of this technology. Or, as Paharia described Altman to BI, a “showman with rizz.”
Google may have found its equivalent in Kilpatrick. He told BI that he often posts on X because it has become something of a town square for AI developers and enthusiasts, all champing at the bit for the latest crumb of news. It’s a community filled with hype, AI “vagueposting”, and steeped deeply in lore (what did Ilya see?).
On a day that OpenAI’s latest release sucking is grabbing everyone’s attention, Kilpatrick may log on and post a single word — “Gemini” — just to rev the hype engine a little.
Kilpatrick often has “a thousand” emails from developers that need responding to, he told BI. “I spend probably as much time as I physically can responding to stuff these days,” he said. And that’s between the numerous product meetings (he had 22 meetings scheduled on the day we spoke in early July, 23 the day before). He once posted on X: “I am online 7 days a week, ~8+ hours a day. If you need something as you build with Gemini, please ping me!”
Developers say they like that Kilpatrick takes the time to engage and listen to their feedback. “The few times I’ve emailed him to get help with something, they near-instantly responded and helped resolve the issue,” said Near, the startup founder. “This is the opposite of my experience through normal support channels.”
Andrew Curran, an AI commentator who frequently posts to X, wrote last month that Kilpatrick had been “an incredible hire” for Google. “To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days,” he wrote.
Kilpatrick told BI that because he is a developer himself, he finds it easy to understand the core target user. He said this has helped in building out Google’s AI Studio, and that engaging with developers comes naturally. “It’s just the obvious thing to do if you want to build a product for developers, is like, go talk to your users,” he said.
He’s been an incredible hire for Google. To a lot of people he is now the face of Gemini, I bet most people don’t even remember his OAI days.
— Andrew Curran (@AndrewCurran_) June 25, 2025
But the definition of developer is changing with approaches like vibe coding, which lets non-technical people create software by describing what they’d like to an AI tool.
“What it means to be a developer right now looks a little different than it did two years ago or three years ago, and I think it’s going to look fundamentally different in 10 years,” said Kilpatrick. He believes the developer group will “massively expand” in the next five years. His job at Google is to make the next generation believe Google is where they should be developing, but that job is also evolving in this new era of artificial intelligence.
“Our mandate is actually AI builders, already encompassing this group of people who maybe don’t identify as developers and don’t write code, but they build software using AI, and I think that’s going to accelerate in the next few years,” he said.
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Architectural landmarks often cluster together. In Tokyo, the iconic Omotesando is a well-known stretch where global “starchitects” built flagship luxury retail spaces in the 2000s. Hong Kong has a lesser-known but equally powerful architectural agglomeration along Queensway—though historically more corporate and less publicly engaging. Beginning in the 1980s, this corridor became home to a series of landmark buildings by some of the world’s most prominent architects: Norman Foster’s HSBC Headquarters, I.M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower, Paul Rudolph’s Lippo Centre, and the nearby Murray Building by Ron Phillips—now revitalized as a hotel by Foster + Partners. The area is further enriched later on by Heatherwick Studio’s renovation of Pacific Place and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ Asia Society Hong Kong Center.
For decades, Queensway remained largely defined by these monumental contributions. But recently, a new presence has emerged: The Henderson by Zaha Hadid Architects. Sculptural, luminous, and technologically daring, the tower not only refreshes the Hong Kong skyline—it redefines how commercial architecture can engage with the city. Where Norman Foster once reimagined the ground plane with the open base of the HSBC building, The Henderson offers a contemporary response: elevating the public realm both figuratively and literally through a raised lobby and a public bridge that weaves into the city’s pedestrian network.
For more than 20 years, the Porsche Cayenne has been characterised by its unique versatility. The all-electric version will build on this and combine performance, everyday usability, long-distance comfort and off-road suitability better than ever. Porsche has shared a first taste of this long before the market launch of the Cayenne Electric, as part of a film production in England.
Porsche demonstrated the high-performance potential of its upcoming all-electric SUV at a historic location: at the Shelsley Walsh hill climb, which has been running since 1905 and is therefore one of the oldest motorsport events in the world, a near-production prototype took part in a filming project while mingling with entrants competing in the British Hillclimb Championship.
Gabriela Jílková, simulator and development driver for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, drove the camouflaged Cayenne Electric up the asphalt hill, which is only three and a half metres wide in places, has a steep gradient of up to 16.7 per cent and totals 1,000 yards (914 metres) in length. She did so with success: on her very first attempt, Jílková beat the previous record time for a Sport Utility Vehicle by more than four seconds.
“The course is challenging and does not forgive mistakes,” she said afterwards. “There are no run-off zones and little room for correction. But the active suspension gives the new Cayenne enormous stability and precision. I felt completely confident at all times.”
The Cayenne Electric was equipped with Porsche Active Ride, which will be offered by Porsche in the SUV in the future. The active chassis keeps the body level at all times, even during dynamic braking, steering and acceleration processes, and ensures a perfect connection to the road through a balanced distribution of wheel loads. “Porsche Active Ride significantly expands the range between driving dynamics and ride comfort in the new Cayenne,” says Michael Schätzle, Vice President of the Product Line Cayenne.
In addition to the record time of 31.28 seconds, another number caused a stir at Shelsley Walsh: the first measuring point, 60 feet (18,3 metres) beyond the starting line, was passed after just 1.94 seconds. Only single-seater racing cars with slick tyres built specifically for this purpose managed this feat at the event, and it gives an idea of the exceptional accelerative performance of Porsche’s new all-electric SUV, which was fitted with conventional summer tyres. Schätzle assures that the final tuning of the Cayenne Electric is still in full swing ahead of its market launch “but the drive power and equipment of the record-breaking car were already at production level”.
In England, Porsche not only gave a first glimpse of the performance of the Cayenne Electric, but also of its suitability for everyday use. The British TV presenter Richard Hammond used the camouflaged prototype as part of a film shoot to transport a classic car more than 100 years old and weighing more than two tonnes from his workshop in Hereford to his garage. Although the total weight with the trailer came to around three tonnes, the Cayenne Electric mastered the task effortlessly, according to Hammond: “We were trailing significant weight behind us, but you wouldn’t know it – the Cayenne handled it effortlessly.”
Porsche has designed the Cayenne Electric to be so robust in terms of body, drive and the thermal management of its high-voltage system that the SUV meets all the requirements to be one of the first BEVs in the world to achieve a towing capacity of up to 3.5 tonnes, depending on the configuration, and also to receive the corresponding approval – just like the current, combustion-engined Cayenne. “Our customers have always appreciated the high utility value of the Cayenne,” continues Schätzle. “That’s why we didn’t want to make any compromises in the development of the all-electric model.”
“Our customers will also have powerful and efficient combustion engine and hybrid models at their disposal well into the next decade, and we are continuing to develop the current model generation at great expense,” says Schätzle. “However, we can only achieve the level of performance publicly demonstrated for the first time in England through the potential of electrification. The Cayenne Electric will set new standards – without compromising on everyday usability and practicality.”
Porsche is planning another public appearance in England with Shelsley Walsh’s record-breaking SUV: the conspicuously camouflaged prototype will be on display at the Goodwood Festival of Speed from 10 to 13 July 2025.
“Enter Electric!“
The Volkswagen Group invites you to find out much more about electromobility with a cross-brand communication campaign. You can find more information about electromobility at Porsche on this Newsroom microsite.
The UK’s financial sector is at a defining inflection point. As banks, regulators, and fintechs pursue transformation at scale, there is growing recognition that digital finance must be more than efficient—it must be transparent, collaborative, and resilient. Open source finance offers a compelling model to achieve just that.
At its core, open source finance involves building financial infrastructure through shared, non-proprietary frameworks—codebases, APIs, standards, and protocols that are open to scrutiny and improvement by the broader ecosystem. Far from being a niche developer concern, open source is now a strategic lever that can redefine how trust is engineered into our digital economy.
The urgency for open systems is not abstract. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed fragilities in closed financial architectures: siloed data, vendor lock-in, and slow responsiveness to public needs. Meanwhile, consumer expectations have shifted irrevocably—real-time access, data portability, and inclusive service design are now baseline requirements.
The UK’s own Open Banking initiative, established through the Competition and Markets Authority, was among the first regulatory frameworks to embrace open APIs. What began as a compliance requirement has since catalysed an entire ecosystem of fintech innovation. Yet this is only the beginning.
If open banking was the first act, open finance must be the second. A broader shift is underway, where financial services are designed around modular, interoperable platforms—platforms that allow banks to adapt faster, scale smarter, and collaborate across boundaries of institution, geography, and industry.
Open source finance brings measurable advantages:
When codebases are open, they can be independently reviewed, audited, and improved. This is especially important in an era of algorithmic decision-making, AI integration, and rising regulatory scrutiny.
Banks can plug into open frameworks without protracted vendor negotiations. Components can be iterated, tested, and deployed faster than with proprietary systems.
By removing licensing barriers and avoiding duplication, open solutions often lower total cost of ownership—freeing up resources for innovation.
Open platforms encourage collaboration among banks, startups, academics, and public institutions. This shared development accelerates progress and avoids siloed effort.
Open data standards, for instance, are vital for accurate climate risk disclosures, ethical AI oversight, and financial inclusion initiatives. When infrastructure is designed for accessibility and auditability, everyone benefits—not just shareholders, but society at large.
The UK is well positioned to lead the next wave of open finance—if it chooses to. The technical groundwork is already strong, but the governance frameworks, cultural alignment, and public-private collaboration must evolve accordingly.
The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) offers a working model. Its success was not merely technical—it was institutional. By convening banks, regulators, and fintechs around shared standards, OBIE laid a foundation of interoperability. The next step is to extend this model to pensions, insurance, investments, and credit scoring. In other words, open finance must become a cross-sectoral norm, not a product feature.
Equally important is education. Many financial institutions still treat open source with scepticism, worried about security, IP risk, or loss of competitive edge. Yet the reality is quite the opposite. Open systems, when well governed, are often more secure due to peer review and faster patching. And far from eroding competitive advantage, openness fosters agility and resilience—traits no institution can afford to ignore.
These are no longer technical—they are strategic.
Legacy institutions struggle to move from closed systems to open collaboration. Procurement processes, legal models, and compliance mindsets need to catch up.
Managing open frameworks requires specialised knowledge—around licensing, security auditing, and community governance. These capabilities are still emerging in mainstream finance.
Without leadership, open finance can fragment into disconnected initiatives. Coordinated effort is needed to ensure interoperability and prevent duplication.
Open projects thrive on contribution. Banks and fintechs must not only consume open tools but actively support their development through funding, engineering, and governance.
These are not reasons for inaction—they are reminders that the shift to open finance is as much a leadership challenge as a technical one.
To harness the full potential of open source finance, UK stakeholders must act deliberately.
Financial institutions should build internal capacity around open development, prioritise API-based architecture, and engage with community governance.
Regulators must provide clear guidance on open source use, especially in critical areas like AI governance, consumer data rights, and digital identity.
Fintechs should document and contribute to shared codebases, avoiding black-box tools that hinder interoperability.
Technology providers must ensure compatibility with open standards and offer licensing terms that support experimentation and scale.
Above all, the UK needs a national dialogue around open finance—not as a compliance issue, but as a cornerstone of digital sovereignty and innovation.
Open source finance is not about replacing banks with code. It’s about designing the financial infrastructure of the future—one that is inclusive, ethical, and built for long-term resilience. In a world of complex risks and rapid innovation, the institutions that succeed will not be those with the most proprietary control, but those with the most collaborative advantage.
The opportunity is here. For the UK to remain a global financial leader, it must now move decisively from open banking to open finance—and from passive adoption to proactive stewardship.
Dr. Gulzar Singh is Founder & CEO of Phoenix Thoughtworks
Dream for Change 2025 finalists at the Women At Dior and UNESCO partnership event in Paris
On the occasion of the fifth Women At Dior and UNESCO Global Conference in Paris, falling just a week after Jonathan Anderson’s Dior Menswear debut, the LVMH maison announced the winners of its 2025 Dream For Change project.
The initiative spearheaded by Vice President Corporate Social Responsibility at Christian Dior Couture, Isabelle Faggianelli focuses on mentoring, education and incubation. Over the course of the year, 1500 Dior employees mentored 2500 young female talents from 90 countries and supported them in the pursuit of respective impact driven global projects empowering women to fulfill their potential.
During the Women At Dior conference, five finalists pitched their projects. For the first time, this took an interactive format with the two winners chosen by public jury made up of the conference’s delegates with live voting via QR code.
Winning projects were Mama Maisha and Femini Lab, both of which combine human endeavor with artificial intelligence.
Kenya based Mama Maisha educates the country’s informal female product vendors in financial literacy, helping them to manage their budgets and save for their old age via both physical planners and an AI chatbot currently under development. They are also working with enterprise partners to match savings amassed by the vendors
Femini Lab is a French initiative that combines physical intervention in schools with an AI engineered digital platform offering personalized guidance. Goal is to give young women the skills to start their own businesses.
The other three finalists were Her Cycle, The Embossers and P.E.T.A.L.S.
Her Cycle works with girls in the United States, educating them on menstrual health and available resources, combining a digital platform with physical outreach while Korea based The Embossers has created a digital gender equality dictionary offering alternative terms for sexist ones ingrained in the Korean lexicon. Also featuring elements of gamification, it harnesses the power language to empower a positive mindset.
P.E.T.A.L.S is reviving the ancient Nepalese craft of incense making by recycling devotional flowers discarded in temples while giving independence and employment to visually impaired women. With a focus on transmission, the latter are given the tools to upskill a new generation.
The Women At Dior and UNESCO conference also harnessed the voices of prominent figures campaigning for the empowerment of women in the worlds of business, sport and the arts.
Zahia Ziouani, Musical and Artistic Director of the symphony orchestra Divertimento who led the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games shared how her orchestra is making the oft male dominated and elitist world of classical music accessible to all while world skydiving champion and co-founder of zerOGravity, Domitille Kiger, described the impact of of mentorship on her team’s record-breaking jumps.
Filmmaker and advocate Zuriel Oduwole, the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, shared how she’d been instrumental in ending child marriage in Mozambique when she was 15.
Elsewhere Dior’s Director of Human Resources Maud Alvarez-Pereyre and UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini emphasized the importance of education as a lever for women’s empowerment and the responsibility of institutions and companies to build a more equitable and sustainable future by upskilling teams in AI, the next wave of digital transformation, while retaining the critical thinking that separates humans from machines.
Alongside initiatives from other leading French Groups such as L’Oréal’s YSL Beauty, Dior’s Women At Dior project, demonstrates the power of the luxury industry as a force for change and women’s empowerment.
Airport staff are earning cash bonuses for every easyJet passenger they spot travelling with an oversized bag, according to a leaked email.
Staff at Swissport, an aviation company that operates passenger gates at airports, are “eligible to receive £1.20 (£1 after tax) for every gate bag taken”, according to the message sent to staff at seven airports in the UK and the Channel Islands, including Birmingham, Glasgow, Jersey and Newcastle.
The payments are to “reward agents doing the right thing”, according to the email explaining the “easyJet gate bag revenue incentive” scheme.
For staff concerned about meeting targets, “internal tracking will be used to identify opportunities for further support and training for individual agents, but will not be used negatively”, it said. The email and its contents was first reported by the Jersey Evening Post.
It also emerged that ground handlers employed by another aviation firm, DHL Supply Chain, at Gatwick, Bristol and Manchester airports are also paid extra for identifying non-compliant easyJet bags. The employees receive “a nominal amount” for each bag, the Sunday Times reported.
Swissport ground handlers earn about £12 an hour. One former Swissport passenger service manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Sunday Times they had no choice but to police the line on oversized baggage.
“Confronting people with excess baggage is like taking on fare dodgers,” he said. “You risk abuse or worse – imagine stopping a group of lads on a stag weekend and telling them I’m going to have to charge you more than you paid for your tickets to check those bags into the hold.”
EasyJet allows passengers to take a small bag that fits under their seat for free. Larger bags can be stored in overhead lockers for an additional fee, which starts from £5.99, depending on the flight. But if an oversized cabin bag is confiscated at the gate, the passenger is charged £48 to stow it in the hold.
The email was sent by a Swissport manager in November 2023 but the policy remains in force today. Payments relating to the scheme are paid directly to employees, it advised.
Swissport said: “We serve our airline customers and apply their policies under terms and conditions for managing their operation. We’re highly professional and our focus is on delivering safe and efficient operations, which we do day in and day out for 4m flights per year.”
EasyJet said it used different ground handling agents at different airports and they managed remuneration directly without its oversight.
The airline said: “EasyJet is focused on ensuring our ground handling partners apply our policies correctly and consistently in fairness to all our customers.
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“Our bag policies and options are well understood and we remind customers of this when booking, before they travel and on their boarding pass, which means a very small proportion of customers who don’t comply will be charged at the airport.”
Ryanair says it does not offer a financial incentive to Swissport staff at its gates but did not confirm whether it offered incentives to other operators.
That staff are incentivised to confiscate bags is likely to anger passengers and comes amid calls for hand baggage fees to be scrapped altogether.
Last month, the transport committee of the European parliament voted to give passengers the right to an extra piece of free hand luggage weighing up to 7kg.
Under the proposed new rule, travellers could carry on a cabin bag measuring up to 100cm (based on the sum of the dimensions), as well a personal bag, at no additional cost.
The law requires approval from 55% of EU member states, and if adopted it would extend to all flights within the EU as well as routes to and from the EU.
There are around 256 million cars on the roads in the European Union, according to data from the European Commission.
With ambitious targets to phase out new petrol and diesel powered cars in the EU by 2035, an influx of Chinese EV brands such an BYD entering Europe and trade tariffs threatening the export market, the European automotive industry is at a critical moment.
“I think to have a credible end date for combustion cars there needs to be a very credible date also for investments and expansion of the charging networks. Otherwise, it will not be possible to be all electric by 2035,” Håkan Samuelsson, CEO and president of Volvo Cars, told Euronews.
But what else needs to be done to ensure the industry stays alive, kicking and competitive?
In this episode of The Big Question, Eleanor Butler sat down with Håkan Samuelsson to discuss the future of the automotive industry in Europe.
In order to meet climate targets, the EU has introduced carbon limits for carmakers, looking at average emissions across a fleet.
Many carmakers have sought to collaborate with other firms on these targets, forming “pools” and combining their emissions. This means that companies with low-carbon or zero-carbon fleets can sell credits to more polluting automakers, permitting them to use a portion of their allowance.
While EV frontrunners benefitted from these targets, demands are now softening. For instance, automakers can now average their emissions over three years instead of one. This means that if they overshoot the limit for one year, they can aim to undershoot for the next and avoid penalties.
“We plan, we develop these cars and we also, of course, saw value in emission credits that we could sell to other builders who are not as fast. And I think that’s a good way of using that money to speed up the transition. And that is, of course, a big drawback now with the delay of everything, which is not good for our company,” Håkan told The Big Question.
He also added that although countries like Norway are very advanced with their charging infrastructure, EV targets will not be met until charging capacity is boosted across the bloc.
“I think we need to rely on the possibilities to drive on a combustion engine when you lack charging possibilities,” Håkan added.
While some European carmakers are calling on the EU to impose tariffs on foreign competitors, Håkan takes a more liberal approach.
“There is really no protection in the form of tariffs or other ways. The only protection for our industry is that we shape up and we need to be more competitive.”
“I think a good forecast is that we will have very tough competition from new Chinese EV players [in the EU]. And then the sooner we get used to that and the sooner we start developing our cars, the better,” Håkan told The Big Question.
In Europe, Volvo has already begun to produce the popular EX30 model in Ghent, Belgium in a bid to reduce delivery time and transportation costs and emissions.
It’s a similar situation in the US, where Volvo has a production plant in Charleston, South Carolina. Håkan hopes to increase production capacity here, not only to avoid Trump’s tariffs but also to be closer to the customer base.
“We need now to find a bread-and-butter model that can sell in high volumes, which we can deliver faster to our customers and of course reduce stock and transportation costs. So local production is not only a cost increase, it has advantages also.
“So even if the tariffs come down to a more reasonable level, we still need to use our factory more than we do today,” he added.
And in China, Håkan stressed that Volvo needs to really focus on what the local market is asking for, rather than replicating European offerings.
“Chinese customers are very tech-interested, so they like a lot of software features in their cars,” he explained.
“And I think that’s an example of a situation where you can’t just put European-developed features in the car, you need to develop [the tech] together with the Chinese to really lead.”
The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.
Watch the video above to see the full discussion with Håkan Samuelsson.
