Text: Understand the original Che Emperor Wang Yan
On April 20, according to foreign media reports, after months of negotiations, Chery Automobile signed an agreement with Spanish automotive company Ebro-EV Motors to establish a joint venture in Barcelona, Spain to produce new electric vehicles. Chery will be the first Chinese automaker to produce cars in Europe.
Chery Automobile signed an agreement with Ebro-EV Motors, a Spanish automotive company
The production site is located at the former Nissan plant, which closed its plant in Barcelona at the end of 2021, leaving about 2,500 workers out of work, and Chery will create 1,250 jobs when it starts production.
In terms of production capacity planning, the project is expected to start in the third quarter of 2024, and Chery will produce the Ou Mengda 5 and other models this year, and the annual production is expected to reach 50,000 units by 2027 and increase to 150,000 units in 2029.
The choice to be the first to put into production of Omenda is that this model, which does not have much presence in the Chinese market, has gained a lot in overseas markets. At present, it has only one model on sale in the domestic market, and its monthly sales are only at the level of 100 vehicles.
Omenda
However, in the international market, Omenda has become a sub-brand of Chery Group, with multiple versions such as Omenda 5, Omenda 5 four-wheel drive version, and Omenda GT, which are sold in more than 30 countries around the world. In terms of sales, in the first half of 2023, the cumulative wholesale sales of Omenda will exceed 60,000 units, of which nearly ninety percent will be contributed by overseas markets.
Chery
At present, the construction of factories in Europe has been in the planning of many car companies. Previously, BYD had announced that it would build a factory in Hungary, and SAIC Motor was also looking for a local production base in Europe.
An important reason is the threat of trade barriers between Europe and China. In recent years, China's auto export market has been reshaped, and Europe has become the largest export destination for Chinese auto exports, but in contrast, more and more countries are exerting obstacles to protect the local auto industry and cultivate the local electric vehicle supply chain.
For Chery, the importance of overseas markets is self-evident. In the first quarter of 2024, Chery Group exported a total of about 253,400 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 40.9%.