(Yicai) May 7\u00a0— Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings has reportedly reached an agreement with Ford to buy the US carmaker’s workshop in Valencia to be able to independently manufacture cars in Spain.<\/p>\n
Geely will buy the Body 3 assembly shop of Ford’s Almussafes plant, La Tribuna de Automoci\u00f3n reported yesterday, citing industry sources. Geely plans to manufacture a new energy vehicle model based on its Global Intelligent New Energy Architecture, as well as another model for Ford, at the factory, the local media outlet noted.<\/p>\n
While Ford clarified that no final decision has been made yet, Geely’s spokesperson for Europe said that the company does not comment on speculative reports.<\/p>\n
A source familiar with the matter told Yicai that Geely and Ford have indeed been in contact for some time, but it is still uncertain whether a final agreement has been reached.<\/p>\n
If the transaction is completed, Geely could save on high import tariffs, and Ford could enhance the capacity utilization rate of its Valencia factory,\u00a0according to analysts.<\/p>\n
Last year, production at Ford’s Valencia plant dropped nearly 18 percent to 98,500 vehicles\u00a0from the previous year, significantly below its designed annual capacity of 400,000 units.<\/p>\n
The overall tax burden for Chinese electric vehicle exports to the European Union can reach up to 45 percent. Therefore, Chinese carmakers have been actively establishing factories overseas and building local supply chains, as well as acquiring idle production capacity overseas in recent years.<\/p>\n
BYD bought Ford’s Cama\u00e7ari plant in Brazil\u00a0in 2023, and Great Wall Motor acquired General Motors’ vehicle assembly plant in Thailand in 2020. Moreover, Mercedes-Benz Group was reported in March to be considering selling its South African factory to Great Wall Motor, and Chery Automobile reached an agreement with Nissan Motor in January to buy its Rosslyn plant in South Africa by mid-2026.<\/p>\n
Given the EU imposition of anti-subsidy tariffs on Chinese EVs and emerging markets’\u00a0high import tariffs on complete vehicles, buying and transforming mature production lines abroad has become one of the optimal pathways for Chinese automakers to expand internationally. In fact, compared to the three to five years typically required to build a factory from scratch, acquiring and upgrading existing facilities only takes about a year to start production.<\/p>\n
The sustained growth of Chinese auto sales overseas is the demonstration of the country’s industrial advantages during the global transition from internal combustion engines to new energies, said Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association. This shift is driving a transformation in the global automotive industry landscape from a domination by Europe, the United States, and Japan to a diverse competition among China, the US, Europe, and Japan, he added.<\/p>\n
However, data from Roland Berger shows that the localization rate of Chinese automakers overseas remains in the third tier, much lower than the levels of Japanese and European brands.<\/p>\n
Editor: Futura Costaglione<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Yicai) May 7\u00a0— Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings has reportedly reached an agreement with Ford to buy the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7827,10225,10223,4368,10118,10226,10224,17,95],"class_list":{"0":"post-18469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-valencia","8":"tag-chinese-automakers","9":"tag-electric-vehicles","10":"tag-eu-tariffs","11":"tag-ford","12":"tag-geely","13":"tag-localization","14":"tag-overseas-expansion","15":"tag-spain","16":"tag-valencia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18469","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=18469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}