AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/24 Report--

Stellantis, the world's fourth-largest carmaker, is considering working with Chinese electric carmakers to expand its business in China, according to foreign media reports.

Stellantis has been exploring the possibility of working with Chinese electric carmakers, including zero cars, according to people familiar with the matter. After Volkswagen announced its partnership with SAIC and Xiaopeng, Stellantis is also weighing options, such as investing in a Chinese electric carmaker to help it expand in the Chinese market.

As of press time, Stellantis had not responded to the news, while Zero Auto told Interface News that it was not clear about the cooperation with Stellantis, but revealed that they were indeed in cooperation negotiations with SAIC-Volkswagen.

On August 2, there was news in the market that Jetta, a brand owned by FAW-Volkswagen, was in talks with zero-running cars or buying a technology platform for zero-running cars, but zero-running cars responded with "no comment", while FAW-Volkswagen did not respond. At the end of July, Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Zero car, said publicly during the launch of the third-generation centrally integrated electronic and electrical architecture "four-leaf clover": "at present, there are two relatively certain (enterprises). One will be the cooperation mode of vehicle technology authorization, and the other will be the authorization cooperation of the lower car body architecture." However, Zhu Jiangming did not disclose details about the two companies, industry speculation, in addition to SAIC Volkswagen, another car company or Stellantis. However, some industry insiders believe that Stellantis's pursuit of cooperation with Chinese electric car manufacturers runs counter to the "light asset" strategy put forward by the company's CEO Tang Weishi in China. As to whether Zero will cooperate with Stellantis in the end, we will wait for the official announcement.

Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, said at the 2022 Paris Motor Show that Stellantis was considering a "asset-light" approach to brands such as Peugeot and Citroen in the Chinese market. In July last year, Stellantis Group announced that due to the lack of progress in the previously announced plan for Stellantis Group to acquire a majority stake in Guangzhou Auto Fick, a joint venture with GAC GROUP, Stellantis Group would develop the Jeep brand in China on a light-asset basis and negotiate with GAC GROUP to terminate the local joint venture. Since then, the Stellantis Group will focus on the distribution of imported Jeep-branded cars in China.

With the withdrawal of Guangzhou Auto Fick, DPCA has become the only joint venture of Stellantis Group in China. However, the performance of DPCA is not optimistic, with cumulative sales of only 44200 vehicles in the first half of the year, down 21.56% from a year earlier.

Under the background of intelligent electrification and the high rise of Chinese independent brands, more and more multinational car companies choose to cooperate with Chinese electric vehicle companies to reshape their market position in order to promote the electrification process quickly. For example, Volkswagen Group cooperates with Xiaopeng Automobile to develop new models, Audi and SAIC reach a deepening cooperation agreement, Changan Ford and Changan Automobile set up a new energy joint venture, and so on, no matter Volkswagen and Xiaopeng, or Audi and SAIC, are actually the beginning of taking the initiative to seek change. Industry insiders expect that there will be more cases of cooperation between traditional car companies and Chinese car companies in the future.

In fact, since the establishment of Stellantis Group, it has not done much in the Chinese market, and is gradually being marginalized. Seeking cooperation with Chinese auto companies may also be a shortcut for Stellantis Group to lay out the Chinese market. As for the future development of Stellantis in the Chinese auto market, we can only wait for the passage of time.

Or affected by the above news, the share price of Zero Motor has strengthened sharply today. As of press time, the company rose 10.33% to HK $32.25.

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