Business News
Yilei Sun
Tony Munroe
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Geely plans to roll out electric vehicles under a new brand with different branding and sales strategies, people familiar with the matter said as the Volvo owner outperformed its main EV rival Tesla vehicles want to take on.
The brand, in the premium segment and named “Zeekr”, will be housed under the new EV entity, Lingling Technologies, Geely, according to three people. Reuters reported the plans for Lingling last month.
Geely, the owner of Volvo Cars and 9.7% of Daimler AG, will roll out models under the new brand based on its open-source EV chassis, announced in September and named the Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA).
It will be a new attempt to enter the market through Geely, and founder and chairman Li Shufu’s long-standing ambition to make premium cars ‘like Mercedes-Benz’ in an effort to bring EV leader Tesla Inc.
Geely will open showrooms, or ‘hubs’, in the city center to sell cars at a fixed price, deviating from traditions of selling cars via dealers – marketing tactics developed by Tesla, which last year quickly sold in China, the largest car in the world, let expand. market.
The plan follows a spate of commitments by Geely earlier this year as the carmaker pursues its goal of becoming a leading manufacturer of EV contracts and engineering service provider.
‘Traditional petrol cars and electric vehicles are two racetracks of business. Geely does not currently have a clear advantage in electric vehicles, so it appears that he wants to complete his own innovation by creating a new brand, ”said Alan Kang, analyst at LMC Automotive.
China’s automakers are largely in competition with entry-level and mass-market manufacturers, including Volkswagen and Toyota, but EV manufacturer Nio Inc. sells cars at higher prices and considers BMW a competitor.
Geely, based in Hangzhou, also plans a wide range of sales and marketing strategies to seek deeper relationships with the EV buyers. It will open lifestyle lines for clothing and accessories and start a car club’s owners’ club, according to Nio, sources say.
Zeekr is also considering introducing a share ownership plan that will enable customers to become Lingling shareholders, which management hopes will boost sales and the relationship between brand and customers.
Geely declined to comment.
Many conventional car manufacturers have used a new brand to introduce their EV units. Geely’s competitors, including Great Wall, and SAIC Motor have launched their respective new standalone EV brands.
The Chinese government has strongly promoted new energy vehicles (NEVs) – such as battery-powered, plugged-in petrol-electric hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell cars – in response to chronic air pollution and a warming climate, sparking interest from technology companies and investors .
China predicts NEVs will account for 20% of its annual car sales by 2025 from about 5% by 2020.