CHINA EVERGRANDE HAS A CONTROLLING STAKE IN US STARTUP FARADAY FUTURE WHICH WHICH PLANS TO EVENTUALLY PRODUCE THE FF ZERO 1 ELECTRIC CONCEPT CAR
China Evergrande’s New Energy Automobile Group has concluded deals with a number of international design and engineering firms in its pursuit of becoming a world leader in electric cars
26 September 2019 | Marcus Reubenstein
China Evergrande is hardly a household name outside of China, it’s perhaps best known as owner of one of the nation’s top professional football teams, Guangzhou Evergrande. The team, located an hour’s train trip from Evergrande’s Shenzhen headquarters, was languishing in football’s second division when bought by Evergrande in 2010.
Within a year Guangzhou Evergrande was promoted and won China’s first division league title, followed up quickly by two Asian Champions League titles. Over the years the club has maintained a squad made up mainly of Chinese players but imported Brazilian, Korean, Argentinian, German and Italian personnel putting them in key positions. That proved a winning formula.
Evergrande is now looking for similar cooperation in driving its auto subsidiary Evergrande New Energy Automobile Group. The group has signed strategic agreements on vehicle R&D and design with German auto engineering and technology firms FEV Group, EDAG and IVA Group as well as Austria’s AVL and Canada’s Magna.
The move continues the group’s aggressive pursuit of becoming the world’s largest new energy vehicle company within the next three to five years and achieving production and sales of 5 million vehicles in ten years.
“The Group aims to lead the world in technologies and the manufacturing quality of new energy vehicles,” said Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande Group.
Under the agreement, Evergrande will work with the five auto giants to jointly develop 15 new automobile models, covering a full range of product types including the top-grade, ultra-luxury, luxury, exclusive, comfortable and classic models.
After tapping into the new energy vehicle market last year, Evergrande has struck a raft of deals with European companies to boost development of its new energy vehicle products.
In January of this year, Evergrande teamed up with Swedish super car brand Koenigsegg to develop the core technology of the world’s top luxury cars. In July, it formed a joint venture with German automotive powertrain engineering company Hofer to jointly produce electric powertrain systems and in September, the company obtained the intellectual property of the chassis architecture 3.0 for the world’s top new energy vehicles from German auto parts suppliers BENTELER and FEV Group.
It’s already made foray into the US electric vehicle market, at the start of this year throwing a lifeline to Faraday Future, once touted as a serious rival to US market leader Tesla. Evergrande first invested in Faraday Future in 2017, but the company ran into financial trouble and an argument ensued with Evergrande over the financial arrangement.
Ultimately Evergrande will pursue a dual-market strategy running Faraday in China, in parallel with its US operations. Though Faraday Future vehicles are yet to go into production, Evergrande New Energy is clearly set on creating its own future as it continues to identify opportunities and strike deals around the world.
