By Preetika Parashuraman and Giulio Piovaccari<\/p>\n
BANGALURU\/MILAN, May 15 (Reuters) – Stellantis and longtime Chinese partner Dongfeng have signed a $1.2 billion deal to produce Peugeot- and Jeep-branded vehicles in China, the automakers said \u200con Friday, hinting at future expanded cooperation.<\/p>\n
The deal equates to a combined investment of more \u200cthan 8 billion yuan, or about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), with Stellantis expected to contribute about 130 million euros.<\/p>\n
It will be supported \u200bby industrial policies in Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, the companies said.<\/p>\n
Aimed at supplying both the Chinese market and exports, the agreement forms part of Stellantis’ new long-term strategy, which Chief Executive Antonio Filosa is due to unveil on May 21.<\/p>\n
It underscores the Franco-Italian group’s push to reposition itself in the world’s largest auto \u200cmarket, reassess manufacturing options and pave \u2060the way for possible further cooperation beyond China.<\/p>\n
Stellantis and Dongfeng also signed a non-binding strategic agreement “to further strengthen their cooperation by leveraging the two parties’ scale, expertise, and \u2060R&D capabilities in the industry,” Stellantis said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Chinese automakers are keen to tap largely underused manufacturing capacity in Europe to accelerate local production and support expansion there.<\/p>\n
Filosa has repeatedly said partnerships would be part of future \u200bstrategy.<\/p>\n
Last \u200bweek, Stellantis said it would start joint vehicle production in \u200bEurope with Chinese partner Leapmotor, extending their \u200ctie-up beyond distribution into manufacturing.<\/p>\n
CHINESE COMEBACK FOR JEEP PRODUCTION<\/p>\n
Stellantis outlined some elements of the deal with Dongfeng last month, saying its Peugeot brand would build cars in China using the partner’s technology under the existing DPCA joint venture.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the companies said they also plan to produce two Jeep-branded off-road new energy vehicles at DPCA’s Wuhan plant for global markets, starting next year.<\/p>\n
The move marks a return to Jeep production in \u200cChina after Stellantis and former Fiat-Chrysler partner GAC ended a \u200bJeep-making joint venture in 2022. Since then, Stellantis has imported Jeeps \u200binto China.<\/p>\n
“With a track record of more \u200bthan 30 years of collaboration and shared automotive expertise, Stellantis and Dongfeng are ready \u200cto further leverage their strengths and introduce all-new \u200bvehicles with cutting-edge EV technologies,” \u200bFilosa said.<\/p>\n
“We look forward to this project and to collaborate even more in the future”.<\/p>\n
Dongfeng still owns a stake of just over 1% in Stellantis, having been a longtime investor in Peugeot \u200bmaker PSA, which in 2021 merged \u200cwith Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8590 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru and Giulio \u200bPiovaccari in Milan. Additional reporting by Qiaoyi Li in Beijing and Zhang Yan in Shanghai. \u200bEditing by Harikrishnan Nair, Alvise Armellini and Mark Potter)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Preetika Parashuraman and Giulio Piovaccari BANGALURU\/MILAN, May 15 (Reuters) – Stellantis and longtime Chinese partner Dongfeng have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[87,3510,8218,2750,171,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-11699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stellantis","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-chinese-automakers","10":"tag-chinese-partner","11":"tag-dongfeng","12":"tag-peugeot","13":"tag-stellantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}