Geely's Zeekr EV brand takes on Tesla, German premiums

Zeekr, the China-based full-electric brand owned by Geely Automobile Holdings, will start sales in Europe this year. As part of that push, Zeekr hired Spiros Fotinos, a 24-year veteran of Toyota who was most recently head of Lexus Europe. Fotinos was named an Automotive News Europe Rising Star in 2021, when he was head of marketing, sales planning and logistics at Toyota Spain. Automotive News Europe correspondent Nick Gibbs spoke with Fotinos to discuss the brand’s aspirations in Europe, and how it plans to compete as a premium EV brand against tough competition from Tesla, established automakers and other newcomers.