Now it appears that Chery, China’s fourth-largest carmaker, which sold 2,603,916 vehicles in 2024 through its nine brands and joint ventures including with Jaguar Land Rover, is close to finalizing a deal to take over the two plants as it prepares to expand into European markets.
If it comes to an agreement to purchase the two German plants, it intends to manufacture models for its brand-new Lepas brand that was launched only a few weeks ago, on April 2, and sells modified versions of Chery‘s Tiggo range that will be available in global markets. European-made models will include two compact and one midsize SUVs with combustion, plug-in hybrid or all-electric powertrains.
Chery is no stranger to building cars in Europe in an effort to avoid the hefty taxes imposed on Chinese EVs by the EU as, since 2024, it has been assembling cars at a former Nissan factory in Barcelona, Spain in partnership with local firm Ebro.
If German unions keep tight control of the working conditions and pay, perhaps this is a decent strategy for getting cheaper EVs into Europe.
German EVs are expensive because of profit maximisation, not by people trying to feed their families.
IMO, the prerequisite for cheaper EVs is offering models that are not SUVs. The article is a bit ambiguous about this, but “European-made models will include two compact and one midsize SUVs with combustion, plug-in hybrid or all-electric powertrains.” sounds to me like they’re mostly going to make ‘compact SUVs’ and ‘midsize SUVs’. Or the article’s author just focuses on their SUV offerings while ignoring smaller cars.
There are a lot of contradictions in this sentence.
deleted by creator
Why, cost of labor?
I didn’t downvote btw.
Tight working conditions and pay is what makes German cars so expensive.
What’s your issue with German auto unions?
I think they meant that pay is pretty good at German VW facilities so there’s no way they can produce them very cheaply.
There is. Make a substantial amount of profit instead of a shitton of profit.