AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/14 Report--

On May 14, Zero Motor and Stellantis Group jointly held a press conference to announce the formal establishment of Leapmotor International B.V. (Zero International) joint venture.

It is understood that Zero International is jointly funded by the Stellantis Group and Zero Automobile, in which Zero Motor owns 49% of the shares held by the Graduate Stellantis Group and 51% of the shares, which means that the Stellantis Group has the dominant position. Zero running International is the first reverse joint venture in China's automotive industry, with zero running cars providing product technology and Stellantis Group providing global market resources and influence, opening up a new model for China's new energy vehicles to go out to sea. It is understood that Zero International is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Xin Tianshu, from the China management team of Stellantis Group, serves as Zero International CEO. The joint venture management team led by Zero International is currently preparing for the launch of T03 and C10 electric models in Europe.

According to the plan, Zero International will start sales in Europe from September 2024, and plans to expand its European sales network to 200 by the end of the year. From the fourth quarter, Zero International will enter the markets of India, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa and South America. Six new models will be launched one after another from 2025. Stellantis has said that Zero International aims to sell 500000 vehicles outside the Chinese market by 2030.

In October 2023, Stellantis Group announced that it would invest about 1.5 billion euros to acquire a 20% stake in Zero Motor to become a strategic shareholder of Zero Automobile. Stellantis Group will have two seats on Zero Automobile's board of directors, and Stellantis Group will appoint the CEO of Zero International Joint Venture. It is understood that Zero International will be exclusively responsible for the export and sales of Zero cars in all markets except Greater China, and will have the exclusive right to manufacture Zero Auto products locally.

According to previous reports, Stellantis Group plans to produce zero-running models overseas, zero-running cars will not build factories overseas, and local production will rely on Stellantis factories and third-party factories. According to market sources, the Stellantis Group is considering producing zero-brand pure electric models at the Mirafiori plant in Italy, with a planned production capacity of 150000 vehicles, which will be officially put into production in 2026 or 2027 at the earliest.

It is understood that the first Zero car to be introduced overseas in cooperation with the Stellantis Group is the Zero C10, the first model based on the new LEAP3.0 architecture and the first model sold in the global market. the model was officially launched in March with a price range of 12.88-168800 yuan, of which the pure electric version costs 12.88-168800 yuan and the extended-range version costs 13.58-165800 yuan.

Looking back at the development of Zero cars, this new power company was founded in 2015 and is now nine years old. Zero-running cars were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2022, and although zero-running cars have become another new car-building force after Wei Xiaoli, the gap between them and their peers is still widening. According to the financial report, the revenue of zero-running cars reached 16.75 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 35.2% over the same period last year. Although operating income increased compared with the same period last year, zero-running cars are still in a state of loss, with a net loss of 4.216 billion yuan in 2023, narrowing compared with a net loss of 5.109 billion yuan in 2022.

At present, the performance of zero-running cars in the domestic market is not strong. In the environment of the extreme internal volume of domestic new energy vehicle companies, the performance of zero-running cars is not outstanding. For the whole of 2023, a total of 144155 new cars were delivered, only about 60% of the annual delivery target set at the 2022 Q3 results conference. Compared with other new car-building forces, zero-running cars still have room for improvement in terms of delivery volume.

However, even so, zero-running cars have the support of "big financiers". For Zero cars, a deeper cooperation with Stellantis can also make use of the latter's rich network of international sales channels to open overseas markets, while holding the Zero run of the Stellantis Group, it is urgent to launch new models that can boost sales with more popular styles. After working with the Stellantis Group, Zero launched its first new model, the Zero C10, and the new flagship SUV will be the first litmus test for the success of the "speed of light" cooperation between the two sides.

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