Chery has started vehicle production at its Barcelona site
- 说明
Chery has started vehicle production at its Barcelona site
- Chinese carmaker Chery has started vehicle production at the Barcelona plant, a former Ebro and then Nissan plant (until 2021). The plant had started producing electric motorcycles under the Silence brand, but the current owner of the Plant, EV Motors, looking for a new partner to produce electric vehicles, signed an agreement with Chery in April 2024 for the establishment of a joint venture allowing the production of Chery models at the Barcelona plant by EV Motors.
- The first models came out of the plant in December 2024 under the Ebro brand, known in Spain for many decades. These are the S700 and S800 SUVs, simply Chery Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 rebranded models. The Ebro S700 SUV is 4.52 m long and its engine is a 147 hp 1.6 petrol engine. The Ebro S800 SUV has a family resemblance to the S700 but is 4.72 m long while its engine is the same as the S700. Both models can, however, be delivered with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. These two models are starting to be sold in Spain before being sold throughout Europe. Ebro expects to sell 25,000 units of these two models by 2025.
- Another SUV has come out of the Barcelona plant under the Omoda brand (from the Chery group) which is already enjoying some success in Spain, with 7,781 sales in this country in 2024 and 1,819 units in the first two months of 2025 (a rate of 11,000 sales over one year). And this model is exported well outside of Spain since it has been sold (6,567 units in 2024 and 2,416 units in the first two months of 2025 (a rate of 14,000 sales over one year). We can therefore expect a production of 25,000 Omoda 5 in 2025 which will be added to the 25,000 Ebro S700/S800.
MG to produce cars in Europe
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MG to produce cars in Europe
- MG (a legacy of the British MG brand) is one of the brands belonging to the Chinese group SAIC , just like Roewe (a legacy of the British Rover brand) or Maxus (a legacy of the British LDV brand). SAIC also assembles cars under license for Volkswagen and GM, an activity that has been declining for several years. Only the Wuling brand (of which SAIC holds 50.1% of the capital) is emerging thanks to the success of its small electric models (Hongguang Mini EV and Bingo).
- MG is a small carmaker in China (less than 2% of the local market) but it is the leading Chinese carmaker in Europe 30 countries (EU + United Kingdom + Norway + Switzerland), with 241,624 sales in 2024, far ahead of BYD (48,587 sales) and Chery (43,787 sales). This is the reason why MG announced two years ago that it was considering producing cars in Europe, and this becomes even more urgent today, with the new European additional tariffs (in addition to the existing tafiffs) applied to electric cars imported from China and in particular to MG (35.3% in addition to the 10% that existed previously).
- But while BYD is building an assembly plant in Hungary with a production capacity of 150,000 vehicles per year, and must seek new customers (around 100,000 per year) to produce that many cars, MG already has a customer base to produce 150,000 vehicles per year in Europe. It would even need two plants of 150,000 vehicles per year, given the expected growth of the European market and its own growth.
- However, in the first quarter of 2025, sales of electric MGs fell by 50% in Europe and now represent only 14% of the carmaker's sales, compared to 30% in 2024 and 47% in 2023. MG has no time to waste.
Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is the 3rd best selling model in China in 2025
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Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is the 3rd best selling model in China in 2025
- Wuling is a Chinese carmaker that formerly specialized in minivans and now specializes in small cars. Wuling is shared between SAIC, which owns 50.1%, and GM, which owns 44%. The remaining 5.9% is owned by Guangxi Auto.
- The small electric city car Wuling Hongguang Mini EV was launched in 2020. It quickly became the best-selling car in China, due to a positioning that went against the sedans and SUVs then offered by Chinese brands but responded to a significant and unmet customer demand, looking for a small electric car, practical, economical and inexpensive.
- Sales of the Mini EV thus increased from 127,651 units in 2020 to 426,482 in 2021 and 554,071 in 2022. The pre-launch and launch of the Wuling Bingo in 2023 then caused a collapse in sales of the Hongguang Mini EV (118,834 units in 2023). Thanks to various technical and aesthetic improvements, sales of the Wuling Mini EV took off again from autumn 2023 before surprisingly declining in early 2024 (an anticipation of the new model launched in summer 2024?).
- Sales resumed again from autumn 2024 after the launch of the four-door version and batteries offering increased autonomy. In the first quarter of 2025, the Mini EV recorded 101,999 sales in China, representing an annual rate of 400,000 sales. The model moved from 19th rank in 2024 to 3rd in 2025.
- Its competitive price (40,000 yuan for the four-door version, the equivalent of 4,975 euros) remains a major asset, especially in a market where affordable electric vehicles are highly demanded. Finally, the marketing strategy (four-door version, convertible version, luxury Macaron version) and technical efforts to meet consumer expectations also played a key role.
Chinese carmakers continue to increase on the Chinese market in 2025
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Chinese carmakers continue to increase on the Chinese market in 2025
- In the first quarter of 2025, production of passenger cars (sedans, SUVs, MPVs) in China increased by 16% compared to the first quarter of 2024, to 6.5 million units compared to 5.60 million last year. This growth marks both the good performance of the Chinese market and the increase in exports, which the CAAM (China Association of Automobile carmakers) estimates at 1.42 million units over the first three months of the year, up 7.3% compared to last year. CAAM estimates the domestic market at 5.24 million units in the first quarter of 2025, up 14.5% compared to the first quarter of 2024.
- Chinese carmakers continue to gain market share from foreign carmakers, most of which produce their cars through joint ventures with Chinese companies. The trend is obvious by obeserving the carmakers growth in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of 2024 to see this.
- BYD, Geely, Wuling, Chery, Xpeng, Xiaomi are the carmakers that have progressed the most during this period and often with significant volumes (362,000 for BYD, 227,000 for Geely, 132,000 for Wuling, 92,000 for Chery, 72,000 for Xpeng, 72,000 for Xiaomi). There are 12 Chinese carmakers among the 14 carmakers that have progressed in 2025.
- Those that have declined the most during the same period are Honda (-85,000 units), Nissan (-52,000 units) and Tesla (-48,000 units), two Japanese carmakers and one American carmaker. There are 9 non-Chinese carmakers among the 15 carmakers that have declined in 2025 (including 4 European, 2 Japanese and 2 American). Note that the American group GM, not including Wuling (owned by SAIC at 50.1%), remained stable but at a very low level.
The ranking of the Top 15 Chinese models shaken up in the first quarter of 2025
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The ranking of the Top 15 Chinese models shaken up in the first quarter of 2025
- The first quarter of 2025 marks various changes in the ranking of the top 15 bestselling models in China (local market + exports), compared to 2024.
- First of all, the Tesla Model Y loses its first place in 2025 and falls to fourth place. We may think that this model undergoes the transition with the new facelifted version but the Model 3 suffers the same fate by falling from fifth place to seventh place. The first two places in the Top 15 are now occupied by two BYD models (Song Plus and Seagull).
- We note that there isfewer BYD brand models (leading brand in China) in the Top 15 of 2025 than in the Top 15 of 2024, i.e. 5 models instead of 8. This does not mean that BYD sales are declining but that while two models are showing strong growth (Song Plus and Seagull), some others have been overtaken by models from other brands.
- Notably, we observe the thunderous return (to third place) of the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, which has benefited from a facelift, the launch of a four-door version and various technical improvements. This model could return to its annual sales rate of 400,000 in 2025, something that has not happened for three years.
- We observe the arrival in the Top 15 of the Xiaomi SU7 (in eighth place) which confirms the success of the model (we are now at a rate of 300,000 sales per year, twice as many as expected).
- We note the presence of three Geely models in the Top 15 compared to only one last year.
- The only foreign brand in the Top 15, Volkswagen now only has two models in 2025, compared to three in 2024.