The time has come to take Volvo Cars seriously, to abandon all talk of how Volvo should be dead, gone the way of the other Swedish car brand, Saab.

Volvo Concept 40.1 front. This is where Volvo is going with a small premium car strategy designed to take on the Big German Three — Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

Volvo has put in place a product plan that delivers a very clear picture of the future – one filled with interesting, progressive new products that place connectivity, electrification and autonomous drive technologies at the centre of everything.

Let’s also mention profits, because nothing is possible without them. Volvo, this long-moribund Swedish brand, the one Ford Motor fire-saled to Chinese multinational Zhejiang Geely Holding Group for a paltry $1.5 billion (US) in 2010, just posted first quarter earnings of 3.1 billion Swedish krona – about $487 million (Cdn). Last year Geely-owned Volvo Cars lost 11 million SEK in the same period.

Volvo Concept 40.2 in profile. Excellent proportions in a bold look.

Volvo’s global sales are up 11.9 per cent this year. The XC90 SUV (sport-utility vehicle) is leading the way. Yes, the XC90 is a smash. One in five new Volvos sold this year so far has been an XC90, says Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive. “We also unveiled the new S90 sedan and V90 estate in the first quarter and we expect these cars to have a similar positive impact on sales.”

We also now know where Volvo is going with small cars. The 40 series concepts suggest that Volvo is deadly serious about taking on the Big German Three in the premium small car segment. Take note, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.

Volvo’s new CMA architecture includes a T5 Twin Engine powertrain.

The 40 series concepts are gorgeous and the design language is consistent with Volvo current designs. Under the skin is Volvo’s new Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) platform. In other words, these concepts reflect a bigger plan to rebuild Volvo literally from the ground up.

Volvo’s top designer, Thomas Ingenlath, says the designs here “have an energy, a disruptive and engaging urban character that makes them stand out amongst the crowd. This is the flavour of small Volvos to come.”

But it’s not just looks that matter here. Volvo seems to have grasped the moment, this point in time when the entire auto industry is moving quickly to shift from car makers to mobility providers — with an awareness of the big social, environmental and demographic trends shaping our world.

One in five Volvos sold is an XC90 SUV — a global smash.

That is, for any car company to survive into the next decade, it must embrace cleaner powertrain technologies, autonomous driving and connectivity. Volvo, then, says its new global small car lineup will include a pure battery electric vehicle as well as plug-in hybrid powertrain variants.

Eventually, Volvo will electrify its entire portfolio. By 2025, Volvo plans to have sold a total of up to 1 million electrified cars by 2025 – or twice the brand’s annual sales volume last year.

CEO Samuelsson says Volvo’s goal is to become a credible luxury brand capable by 2020 of going toe-to-toe with Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.

Volvo’s revival plan has at its core the electrification of the entire lineup.

“My belief is by 2020 we shall be a true premium alternative, including pricing and everything that requires,” Samuelsson tells Automotive News. “We need the time. We have taken steps.”

Those steps have been paid for by Geely’s $11 billion (US) investment in everything. Yes, everything.

As Automotive News chronicles, since 2010, Volvo has reinvented its design language; developed two flexible platforms; launched new turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder engines; redesigned key vehicles, including the XC90 and the coming S90 and V90; expanded its joint small car development with Geely; opened two new factories in China; broken ground on a U.S. factory in South Carolina that will build the next S60; and cemented its plans for electrifying the lineup, including new plug-in hybrid versions of every nameplate.

The XC90’s large large tablet-like touch screen has been widely praised.

What we’re seeing at Volvo here in 2016 is astonishing when seen through a 2010 lens. At that time, Ford had sent one of its best managers, Steve Odell, to Volvo’s Gothenburg headquarters, tasked with putting lipstick on a money-losing pig. Ford, itself in crisis mode, could not afford to re-stock Volvo’s product pipeline as its reinvented its own portfolio during the financial crisis.

So Odell set about putting Volvo’s house in order without investing any money, then found Geely. Keep in mind, that Ford bought Volvo in 1999 for $6.5 billion. Yes, Ford lost $5 billion on the sale alone (all figures in US dollars). What a disaster. As one Volvo insider told me, “the cupboard was bare. Ford didn’t fund the product pipeline for years.”

It’s taken six years to fix Volvo. The critical next step is to get into the premium small car game. Until Volvo successfully competes in this high-volume segment, the final chapter in the Volvo turnaround cannot be written.

The interior of the XC90.

So mark down 2017 as critical year. That’s when the first new 40 series cars will go into production and we’ll be able to take the measure of Volvo’s bold plan to take on the Germans and beat them.