Geely started out in 1986 making refrigerator parts and went on to buy Volvo Cars from Ford in 2010. Its name translates as lucky, and its badge is a shield of gems.
- Country
-
China - Active
- Since 1986
- Founded by
- Li Shufu
- Website
- Official website ↗
From fridge parts to Volvo’s owner
Geely’s story begins far from the car business. In 1986 Li Shufu, born in Taizhou in Zhejiang province, started out making refrigerator parts. Then came refrigerators, building materials and, in 1994, motorcycles. Cars were still a dream.
That changed in 1997, when Geely entered car manufacturing and set up Geely Automobile in Taizhou. In 1998 its first self-developed car, the Haoqing, rolled off the line at Linhai. There was one problem: private companies were not allowed to build cars in China. Geely got its production licence in 2001, on the eve of China joining the World Trade Organization, and calls itself the country’s first private car company.
The rest moved fast. In 2005 Geely Automobile became the first Chinese carmaker listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Then, on 28 March 2010, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group signed a deal to buy all of Volvo Cars from Ford. The purchase was completed on 2 August 2010. Today the Geely brand is based in Hangzhou.
A lucky name
Geely is a transliteration of the Chinese name 吉利 (Jílì), which translates as auspicious or lucky. Hard to pick a better word for a startup betting on cars. The brand’s Chinese vision line, 让世界充满吉利, asks for a world full of Geely, and the second meaning is hard to miss.
Sky, earth and a shield of gems
For years Geely cars wore a round badge. Accounts of those early emblems differ, so we’ll keep the details out. The badge that defines the brand arrived in 2014: a shield made of gemstones, in blue and black.
Geely explains every part of it. The shield expresses safety and trust, the brand’s pursuit of safety and stability. The gemstones stand for eternity. Blue is the clear sky and black is the earth, together a sign that Geely cars will travel around the world. The shield is split into six segments, and Chinese design site Digitaling points out that six is an auspicious number in China, a quiet echo of the name.
When Geely entered what it calls its 4.0 era, the golden outline gave way to a silver one, a sign of its focus on technology and the future. According to Digitaling, this flatter version came in 2019. Geely also started using an all-black badge on its newer, sportier models.
No more borders
On 25 November 2022, Geely updated its logo again, and the new look reached international markets in early January 2023. The 3D effect is gone. What’s left is a flat, frameless version of the same shield and gemstones. Geely calls the form digital and borderless, showing its determination to break boundaries as it moves into electric and intelligent cars. In ads it appears in single colours, and on the cars it is mostly silver.
You may also spot a squarer badge of six rounded tiles. That belongs to Geely Galaxy, a new energy series launched in February 2023. Its logo keeps the six-part idea of the main Geely badge, but it is a separate mark.
Borderless blue
Blue has always been part of Geely’s identity, and the 2022 logo came with a new brand colour called borderless blue. Geely says it symbolises endlessness and vastness, and also the nature of water, which nurtures all things. It sits in a scheme with two more shades: evolutionary blue and ecological blue.
The cars that carried the shield
Geely went from a car that technically wasn’t allowed to exist to a whole family of brands in about two decades. These are the milestones along the way.
Landmark Geelys, decade by decade
- 1998: Haoqing. Geely’s first self-developed car, built at Linhai in Zhejiang.
- 2015: Borui. A large sedan whose launch, in Geely’s words, took the brand into its 3.0 era of quality cars.
- 2019: Geometry A. Launched in Singapore as the first model of Geometry, Geely’s new pure electric brand.
- 2023: Galaxy L7. A plug-in hybrid SUV and the first model of the Geely Galaxy series.
Geely’s owner, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, reaches well beyond its own badge. Besides Volvo, it bought 49.9% of Proton and 51% of Lotus in 2017, and in 2020 it set up a joint venture with Mercedes-Benz to run Smart.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Geely logo mean?
According to Geely, the shield stands for safety and trust, and the gemstones for eternity. Blue is the sky and black is the earth, a sign that Geely cars will travel the world.
What does the name Geely mean?
Geely is a transliteration of the Chinese word 吉利 (Jílì), which translates as auspicious or lucky.
When did Geely change its logo?
The shield and gemstone design arrived in 2014. Geely introduced a flat, frameless version on 25 November 2022, which reached international markets in early 2023.
Does Geely own Volvo?
Yes. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group bought Volvo Cars from Ford in 2010. The deal was signed on 28 March and completed on 2 August.
Is the Geely Galaxy logo the same as the Geely logo?
No. Geely Galaxy, launched in February 2023, has its own square badge of six rounded tiles. It borrows the six-part idea of the main Geely shield.
Fridge parts to Volvo: the lucky shield ledger
- Founded
- 1986
- Founder
- Li Shufu
- Country
- China
- Headquarters
- Hangzhou, China
- Parent company
- Zhejiang Geely Holding Group
- Current emblem
- A flat, frameless shield of six gemstone segments, introduced in November 2022
- Known for
- Buying Volvo Cars, and a shield of blue and black gems
- Website
- Official website ↗
