A few days ago, Chongqing Daily reported that Tang Liangzhi, deputy secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and mayor, met with Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Automobile, and witnessed the signing of a strategic cooperation framework agreement between the municipal government and Ideal Automobile. At present, the details of the strategic cooperation framework agreement are not disclosed. Li Xiang said that Ideal Automobile will actively play its own advantages, increase its investment layout in Chongqing, and continue to deepen strategic cooperation with Chongqing.
In 2018, Ideal Automobile successfully obtained the qualification of car manufacturing through the acquisition of Chongqing Lifan Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. for 650 million yuan. Relevant people said that the "return" of ideal cars to Chongqing this time may be related to this.
Today, the delivery of ideal cars is gradually increasing, and production capacity is encountering bottlenecks. Its Changzhou plant, which has a production capacity of 100,000 units and will produce extended-range electric models, is expected to reach 200,000 units by expanding production capacity in 2022.
In February this year, Ideal Automobile released the "2025 Strategy", indicating that it will obtain a 20% share of the domestic electric vehicle market in 2025 and achieve sales of 1.6 million units. To this end, Ideal Will also launch a range extended electric vehicle as well as other pure electric vehicles.
Obviously, the production capacity of the Changzhou base cannot meet the demand for ideal cars.
To this end, in October this year, it has officially taken over the Beijing Hyundai First Factory in Shunyi, Beijing. It has been reported that its Beijing green smart factory will use the original plant transformation, the utilization rate will reach 60%, and the next phase of the transformation will achieve an annual output of 100,000 pure electric vehicles after the completion of the transformation in 2023.
At the earnings report for the third quarter of this year, Ideal Automobile said that it is expected to achieve 500,000 units / year standard design capacity by the end of 2023. If the production is carried out in two shifts, the total production capacity will reach nearly 700,000 vehicles per year.
Even so, this is still far from the goals set by its strategy. Therefore, the cooperation between Ideal Automobile and Chongqing should land a new factory in Chongqing.
Previously, it was rumored that Ideal Automobile would take over Beijing Hyundai's Chongqing plant, considering that it had already cooperated with Beijing Hyundai, and the current utilization rate of the production capacity of Beijing Hyundai's Chongqing factory was extremely low. For this reason, some people believe that the possibility of ideal cars taking over the Beijing Hyundai Chongqing plant is very large.
According to the data, Beijing Hyundai Chongqing plant plans to have an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, with some electric vehicle production capacity. However, even if all 300,000 vehicles are used for electric vehicle production, it seems that it still cannot meet the demand for ideal cars.
It is reported that the relevant personnel of Ideal Automobile have inspected the Chongqing factory of Beijing Hyundai on the spot. However, it is reported that at present, ideal cars are still not clear whether it will take over the Beijing Hyundai Chongqing plant. Relevant people said that ideal automobile cooperation with Chongqing this time does not rule out the possibility of building its own factory in Chongqing.
In fact, from the above analysis, its takeover of the Beijing Hyundai Chongqing factory is indeed not able to meet the ideal car to achieve the "2025 strategy". Therefore, in terms of efficiency, it may be better if Ideal Automobile builds its own new factory in Chongqing.