By Qiaoyi Li, Nick Carey and Gilles Guillaume<\/p>\n
BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) – Chinese luxury automaker Hongqi, famed as Mao Zedong’s preferred car brand, is in talks with Stellantis to build vehicles at one of the \u200cFiat-to-Jeep owner’s Spanish plants as it expands in Europe, five sources familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n
Hongqi’s owner, \u200cstate-owned automaker FAW, is holding the talks with Stellantis via Chinese electric vehicle maker Leapmotor, two of the sources said. Both FAW and Stellantis are \u200binvestors in Leapmotor.<\/p>\n
The previously unreported talks could accelerate Hongqi’s European expansion and its plans to launch more than a dozen EV and hybrid models in the region by 2028, while helping it avoid spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new factory.<\/p>\n
“This was the way that Hongqi can start European production quickly,” said one of the sources, with direct knowledge of the talks. “Hongqi \u200cis using that network to gain a \u2060manufacturing base through Leapmotor and Stellantis.”<\/p>\n
The talks are ongoing and may not lead to a deal. Hongqi, FAW and Leapmotor did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A Stellantis spokesperson \u2060declined to comment on specific Reuters’ findings.<\/p>\n
“As part of its normal course of business, Stellantis holds discussions with a range of industry players around the world on various topics, always with the ultimate aim of providing customers with the best mobility choices,” the person \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
CHINESE \u200bCARMAKERS PUSH EUROPE EXPANSION<\/p>\n
Best known in China as Mao’s national car \u200bbrand, Hongqi is one of dozens of Chinese \u200cautomakers expanding overseas with ambitious sales targets. They include state-owned groups Changan and Dongfeng.<\/p>\n
Hongqi, which means “red flag”, is targeting sales of 1 million vehicles a year by 2030, with at least 10% outside China, another of the sources said. Production in Spain would mark its first manufacturing foothold in western Europe.<\/p>\n
This source said the company has also been looking at Hong Kong as a possible production location, which would face fewer tariffs on exports than mainland China, but no final decision has \u200cbeen made.<\/p>\n
Leapmotor and Hongqi struck a deal last year for Leapmotor \u200bto supply an EV platform to Hongqi, helping support the older brand’s \u200boverseas expansion after decades focused on sedans for Communist \u200bParty leaders.<\/p>\n
Hongqi said last year it would launch 15 electric and hybrid models in Europe \u200cby 2028 across 25 different markets and unveiled the \u200bEHS5, a compact electric SUV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Qiaoyi Li, Nick Carey and Gilles Guillaume BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) – Chinese luxury automaker Hongqi, famed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7827,7824,7828,7826,17,7825],"class_list":["post-13019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-chinese-automakers","tag-hongqi","tag-mainland-china","tag-mao-zedong","tag-spain","tag-stellantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}