Well, you seem very sure of yourself in dissecting Volvo's marketing strategies. What would you have Volvo do? Lie down and play dead or revert to quirky box-like structures? With regard to being late in the game at competing with Lexus: Volvo was selling high end cars decades before there were computers smart enough for Toyoto to come up with the Lexus name. Audi couldn't sell their previously badly engineered and unreliable cars when Volvo was the pillar of longevity. BMW was late in the game at overcoming failure and service problems that would make the recurrent Brickboard Volvo reliability issue trivial by comparison. Surely, Volvo, as other manufacturers, has to be progressive and try to keep up with automobile advances and competition. From what I have seen with the current models in the various price categories, Volvo seems to have given the dealers a competitive line to work with. Styling issues, public technical awareness and what is the flavor of the month are subjective and fleeting, and Mercedes, BMW etc. are just as vulnerable to changing markets (sedans in general are not selling well compared with the irrational infatuation for SUVs). So I suggest we can the pomposity and recognize that we are all allowed to exercise our individuality in deciding what we want to buy in a free market. Meanwhile, the Volvo marketing people will no doubt be doing extensive market research and will fortunately not need to rely on the one self-assured "authority" who started this chain.