Geely and electrification

Zhejiang Geely Holding (ZGH) launched another car brand in China last week when it announced its Radar RD6 to the world, amid much speculation about where it will actually go on sale. While the company says it intends to begin offering the RD6 to Chinese consumers in the fourth quarter. At the same time, it also researches Southeast Asian markets to look for potential customers as well as golden opportunities. And the company also seems to be taking the possibility of entering the US market into consideration.

While utes is a niche in China, it is mostly used by farmers and is in fact banned on most urban roads (tests have been carried out since 2016 allowing entry on "selected areas"), Geely is betting on growing demand from city residents to mitigate coronavirus restrictions are driving interest in outdoor activities like camping.

Although they accounted for only 2% of new car sales in China last year, the segment's growth rate has outpaced other segments, including sedans and SUVs, but this niche status seems to indicate Geely has broader global plans for Radar and RD6.

And while you might think that this is just another Chinese car brand that we won't see here, it's also worth looking at which brands the ZGH Group actually owns and where to sell them. In fact, you may already know a few of them.

The company's flagship products are sold under the Geely Auto brand, with a wide range of hatchbacks, saloons and SUVs.

Geely Auto was one of the first Chinese brands to come to New Zealand, along with Great Wall and Chery, offering the small LC sedan (known as the Panda in its home market) in 2010 before quietly disappearing. a few years later. Geely Auto has more than 70,000 employees, including 5 R&D centers and 5 design centers with more than 20,000 research and design employees, and has sold more than 1.3 million vehicles by 2021.

That's enough to make it a major auto company in its own right, but that's just the tip of the Geely iceberg.

Geometry is Geely Auto's electric sub-brand that supplies EV versions of Geely Auto vehicles to the Chinese market, while Lynk & Co is a joint venture between Geely Auto and Volvo offering hybrid and PHEV versions of the vehicle. Its special high-tech 01 SUV. Europe as part of a subscription, lease, or outright purchase program. Both brands are said to be finally going our way.

Also under the auspices of Geely Auto is the first brand that people may know here - Proton, the Malaysian brand that was sold in New Zealand for a while in the 1990s as a series of pretty terrible cars. based on the Mitsubishi platform. Proton is now a modified Geely Auto car, sold mainly in Malaysia.

But it's not just branding selling here - the broader ZGH Group now has several brands sold in New Zealand. The best known, of course, are Volvo Cars. The Volvo brand's automotive business has been a separate company from the truck business since 1999 when Ford acquired it. The ZGH Group bought Volvo Cars from Ford in 2010 and recently announced it will be an all-electric brand by 2030.

In addition to Volvo's partnership with Geely Auto in Lynk & Co, the two also teamed up to make Volvo's performance arms a separate array. a brand that's been making waves here lately - Polestar. A local first, the Polestar 2 is a deeply impressive attempt, good enough to win our Top Car for 2021 award when it arrives here later in the year.

Another brand you may be familiar with is Lotus, which was acquired by the ZGH Group as part of the Proton deal in 2017 after the British brand passed through several owners, including Toyota, General Motors and General Motors. and Italian businessman Romano Artioli revived Bugatti in the 1990s.

ZGH is pumping big money into Lotus, reinventing it as a high-tech all-electric brand and its impressive Eletre SUV going on sale in New Zealand. The ZGH Group also owns several other top brands that are not currently sold here but as you know, Smart (joint venture with Mercedes-Benz) and LEVC may not be immediately familiar but stands for London Electric Vehicle Company. LEVC was formerly known as the London Taxi Company; The company builds London's iconic black cabs and dates back to 1919. Geely acquired the company's assets in 2012 after taking over and making it all-electric in 2017.

Other ZGH Group brands include Zeekr, an all-electric brand that sells only one car - the Zeekr 001, a high-performance wagon that will also be sold as Lynk & Co. Zero - and Farizon Auto, the maker of all-electric trucks and buses. It also operates Maple and ZD Auto, two popular car brands in China. Perhaps it sounds very strange, but it is Terrafugia, a company founded sixteen years ago by five graduates who are distinguished in MIT that develop what we called flying cars.

And, of course, the ZGH Group is also active in aerospace, building satellites, which only adds to the feeling that Geely is not "just another Chinese automaker", but rather a vast corporation that could be exploited by a James Bond villain. The custodian will be Chinese billionaire Li Shufu, founder and owner of ZGH Group, which means Geely is one of China's few private automakers, along with Great Wall and BYD, in which the Chinese government has no financial involvement.

Though it may miss the openly political ties of other Chinese manufacturers such as Dongfeng, BAIC, FAW, Changan, Chery and SAIC (the parent group of LDV and MG Motor, both sold in China) here), all 100% made in China. The government, it's not entirely immune to controversies surrounding Chinese automakers.

In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused Geely, along with more than 80 other major brands (including other Chinese carmakers, but also BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, and Jaguar). Land Rover and Mitsubishi) were involved in raping the Uyghurs. work in Xinjiang.

In total, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group's car brands sold a total of more than 2.2 million units last year, lower than Toyota's massive 10 million total but close to par with BMW. and Mercedes-Benz. , and ahead of Mazda and Subaru.

None of this exactly matches the appearance of Radar electric utility in New Zealand, but the reach of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and the fact that it already has several established brands here certainly do. making it more likely.