Chery's Spanish plant to be among main export facilities worldwide

BARCELONA – Chery said its newly acquired Barcelona plant will be one of its main exporting facilities worldwide, aiming to produce 150,000 vehicles a year by 2029 as part of a joint venture with Spanish company EV Motors.

Production will begin at the end of the summer at the plant, Chery's first in Europe, and the automakers will initially hire 150 former Nissan workers, who are currently on a training program financed by authorities after the Japanese company divested in 2021.

The venture ultimately intends to hire up to 1,250 workers.

"Once we reach enough (production) scale, we will plan exporting to the rest of Europe and other countries, turning it into one of Chery's main exporting facilities worldwide," Chery Executive Vice President Guibing Zhang said during a presentation by the joint venture at the facility, which was partly handed to EV Motors after Nissan's exit.

EV makers worldwide are waging an aggressive price war to win market share and the European Union is investigating whether Chinese automakers benefit from unfair government subsidies.

Chery and EV Motors will invest about €400 million ($426.64 million) in the plant, Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said at the same event.

Sanchez said such investments showed that Spain is becoming a large EV hub for Europe after it launched a €5 billion plan in 2020 to attract production using European Union pandemic relief funds.

This year, Chery will manufacture its Omoda 5 SUV, both in its full-electric and combustion-engine versions, in Barcelona and will later also produce its Jaecoo 7 there.

Using a shared production platform and technology with Chery, EV Motors will relaunch the Spanish brand EBRO, which stopped sales in 1987.

EV Motors will begin manufacturing two SUV models in plug-in-hybrid and combustion versions in the fourth quarter.

They will also apply for public funding, EV Motors said in a statement.

Authorities in Catalonia, the region of which Barcelona is the capital, said earlier this week they would help with financing for the project, but did not elaborate.

The two automakers could also request funds from Spain's central government, which has €1.7 billion available this year under the pandemic relief program.