AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)07/28 Report--

On July 27, the management team of Geely's joint venture with Mercedes-Benz officially confirmed that the joint venture had been formed and started after a year and a half. According to the plan, the joint venture will produce smart electric cars in Chinese factories, and the first domestic model will be launched in 2022.

The two sides formally signed a joint venture agreement as early as March 2019. Geely Holdings Group and Daimler Group jointly announced the formation of a joint venture company in China to operate and develop the smart brand and turn smart into a pure electric vehicle brand. The joint venture is headquartered in China and is 50 per cent owned by both sides.

Under the joint venture agreement, the new generation of pure electric smart will be designed by Mercedes-Benz's global design department and Geely Holdings Global R & D Center will be responsible for engineering research and development. The new model will be produced in a new factory in China and is expected to be launched and sold around the world in 2022. At the same time, as part of the overall new model research and development plan, the future product lineup of smart also plans to expand to the compact level.

In January 2020, Geely formally established a smart brand global joint venture with Mercedes-Benz, named "Smart Motor Automobile Co., Ltd. (smart)", registered in Hangzhou Bay, Ningbo, China, with a registered capital of 5.4 billion yuan. Among them, Mercedes-Benz mainly acquired shares in the form of smart brand investment.

In July, the global management team of the joint venture company officially confirmed and started operation. Tong Xiangbei was appointed global CEO of smart JV, co-ordinating all business modules of smart brand, such as marketing, sales, R & D, and reporting to the board of directors of smart JV. Tong Xiangbei once served as assistant to the president of Geely Group and general manager of the Zhangjiakou factory of LinkedIn. In addition, senior executives, including vice presidents of sales, marketing and after-sales, vice presidents of technical research and development, vice presidents of finance and CFO, have also been formally confirmed.

At the same time, the joint venture company will set up smart Europe Co., Ltd. in Stuttgart, Germany, to be responsible for the sales, marketing and after-sales business of the next generation of smart models, products and services in the European market.

After becoming Daimler's largest shareholder, Geely and Daimler have officially completed three joint projects.

In February 2018, Geely announced that it would acquire 9.69% of Daimler's voting shares through its overseas enterprises. Geely became Daimler's largest shareholder and promised to hold its stake for a long time.

In September 2019, Geely and Daimler jointly invested in Volocopter, a German city air travel company. In addition, Geely and Volocopter plan to set up a joint venture in China to introduce urban air travel solutions to China, where Geely will be responsible for the production and marketing of Volocopter products.

Geely and Daimler Travel Services Co., Ltd. formed a high-end chauffeured car joint venture in October 2019. The joint venture will be headquartered in Hangzhou and the two sides will have a stake of 50:50. The joint venture, named Yaocheng, plans to provide high-end chauffeured car services in some Chinese cities, using Mercedes-Benz brand models, including Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedans, E-Class sedans and V-Class MPV.

With the acceleration of the transformation of new energy vehicles in the global market, Sino-foreign joint venture projects are also gradually increasing. Previously, BMW has established a joint venture with Great Wall Motor in China, which will produce Mini pure electric vehicles, and Toyota and BYD have established a pure electric vehicle research and development company in China to carry out the design, research and development of pure electric vehicles and their platforms and parts. Future products use the Toyota brand and plan to be launched in the Chinese market by 2025.

Geely and Mercedes-Benz joint venture smart pure electric vehicle plan, also based on the development prospect of new energy vehicles.

The smart brand, which was born in 1998, has already become a burden for Mercedes-Benz because of its niche positioning and continuous loss-making operation. Perhaps the smart brand is expected to break through the current dilemma. However, in the face of the declining new energy market, there is still great uncertainty about whether the domestic smart pure electric vehicles can get a piece of the domestic market in the future.

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