Sweden does not have a car industry. The fighter jets are a different matter, very strong technical moat and need to prove the system in combat. You can't just start a fighter jet business.
What do you mean Sweden does not have a car industry?
Volvo and Polestar have their HQ in Sweden and huge manufacturing plants. They also develop platforms for some other Gealy brands including Link&co and IIRC also Zeeker.
Volvo is complicated. Basically a lot of these smaller companies and countries realized there was no way they could make the economics work with the cost of electronics and software-related R&D being what they are. So they sold to larger players. But design and final assembly still happens in Gothenburg for high-end models that are typically destined for the EU market. The US now manufactures the SUVs.
Volvo was bought by Ford in 1999 and then sold by Ford to Geely in 2010. It had nothing to do with software related r&d, it was mostly down to Ford needing money after the financial crisis.
Volvo have factories in Sweden, Belgium, USA, and China. The new EX60 is manufactured in Sweden. The US factory makes the EX90, XC60, Polestar 3, and until recently the S60 sedan.
Volvo Cars is still headquartered in Sweden, and employ 22.4k people in Sweden out of 40k globally[1].
Given that the market for Volvo is global, it seems to me that Volvo Cars is still overwhelmingly Swedish, while at the same time being overwhelmingly controlled by Geely.
The Top Gear enthusiast in me loves that you included Koenigsegg in this conversation.
But including a company that hand-builds a handful of hypercars annually in a conversation about the auto industry in Sweden is not the flex you think it is.
Sweden had a native car industry they decommissioned themselves, in short, they basically gave up, but they’re not alone Australia, New Zealand did the same and so did Canada, but they’re starting to realize that they were a little bit hasty in giving up….
Then last, but not least the UK basically threw the towel in too on a wide assortment of industries, but they’re now discovering that that was a big mistake.
