{"id":34199,"date":"2026-05-07T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/34199\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T09:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T09:00:18","slug":"geely-set-to-acquire-spanish-ford-body-hall-to-build-eu-evs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/34199\/","title":{"rendered":"Geely set to acquire Spanish Ford body hall to build EU EVs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geely sticks to its promise not to build wholly-new plants, while Ford tightens its bonds with Chinese automotive. By Stewart Burnett<\/p>\n

Geely has reportedly reached an agreement to acquire the Body 3 assembly hall at Ford\u2019s Almussafes plant in Valencia, Spain, with plans to produce vehicles based on its GEA modular platform there, according to Spanish trade publication La Tribuna de Automoci\u00f3n. The two companies are also understood to be exploring a parallel arrangement under which Geely would build a Ford-badged model at the same facility using the same platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neither company has confirmed the deal; a Ford spokesperson dismissed the report as speculation to Reuters, while Geely has rejected all requests for comment. The development is not entirely new, however\u2014previous reporting<\/a> by Reuters from February indicated the companies were in advanced talks about shared manufacturing at Valencia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Ford the merits of selling the Body 3 hall are relatively straightforward. As the newest addition to the Valencia site, it was previously used to produce the Mondeo, Galaxy and S-Max before their discontinuation. Now it sits unused, and the only model actually being produced at the site is the Kuga SUV, leaving it running well under its maximum annual capacity of 300,000 units.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Acquiring Body 3 would effectively allow Geely to operate independently within the site, benefiting from proximity to Ford without actually sharing its supply chain. Thus it would have autonomous manufacturing capabilities inside of Europe\u2014outwith its Volvo Cars facilities\u2014that it can use to sidestep EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports.<\/p>\n

\"GeelyThe first Geely to be produced at Valencia would reportedly be the EX2 SUV<\/p>\n

Little surprise, then, that the first vehicle expected for production at Valencia\u2019s Body 3 hall would be an electric SUV\u2014to be specific a European version of the EX2, known in China as the Xingyuan. In 2025, the model was Geely\u2019s best-selling in the Chinese mainland. Boasting a 410 km range and an entry-level pricing of around CN\u00a565,800 (US$9,650), the merits for Western consumers paying roughly quadruple this for a comparable vehicle require little explanation. Even with European labour and energy costs factored in, it will likely undercut comparable European models by an appreciable amount.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The possibility of joint vehicle development adds a second layer to the reported deal. If Geely were to produce a Ford model on GEA underpinnings at Valencia, it would give Ford a locally-built EV derived from Chinese technology at a fraction of the platform development cost. This would extend a strategy already visible in the Explorer and Capri, which use Volkswagen\u2019s MEB architecture, and two forthcoming models set to use Renault\u2019s platform. Ford is also developing<\/a> a new electric architecture for affordable entry-level EVs; a US$30,000 pick-up is expected to be the first product built on this platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The original reporting from February arrived during a notably concentrated period of Ford-China speculation: the Financial Times had reported days earlier, citing four sources, that Ford had held preliminary talks<\/a> with Xiaomi, BYD, and other Chinese brands about potential US joint ventures, a story Ford denied unequivocally. Reuters also reported that month that Ford had engaged<\/a> Trump administration officials about a joint venture model for Chinese automakers to gain access to US markets.<\/p>\n

The Valencia deal sits within Geely\u2019s broader European manufacturing push. Li Shufu confirmed<\/a> in late April that the Chinese automotive conglomerate would build across Volvo Cars\u2019 existing Torslanda, Ghent, and Ko\u0161ice plants rather than constructing new facilities, citing global overcapacity<\/a>; the reported Ford acquisition more or less follows the same logic of absorbing idle European infrastructure rather than adding to it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geely sticks to its promise not to build wholly-new plants, while Ford tightens its bonds with Chinese automotive.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,40,22769,1731,268],"class_list":{"0":"post-34199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-ford-motor-company","11":"tag-geely","12":"tag-stewart-burnett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}