As the "head" of the world's fourth largest automobile manufacturer, Stellantis Group's global CEO Carlos Tavares came to China again after half a year and brought the news that the joint venture with Leapmotor has been officially established.
Stellantis Group Global CEO Tavares Tang (left) and Leapmotor Technology Founder, Chairman and CEO Zhu Jiangming
On May 14, Stellantis NV (hereinafter referred to as "Stellantis Group") and Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Leapmotor") announced in Hangzhou that "Leapmotor International BV" (hereinafter referred to as "Leapmotor International") led by the Stellantis Group was officially established. The joint venture company is held by Stellantis Group and Leapmotor with 51% and 49% shares respectively.
It is reported that Leapmotor International is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is headed by Xin Tianshu, who is from the Stellantis Group's China management team, as CEO. The joint venture management team led by him is currently preparing for the successful launch of the two electric models, C10 and T03, in Europe.
Among them, C10 is a B-class model mainly positioned as a family car; T03 is an A00-class intelligent pure electric vehicle suitable for urban use and has competitiveness.
With the help of Stellantis Group's distribution channels, Leapmotor International plans to launch Leapmotor cars in nine European markets including France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Greece and Romania starting from September this year.
Leapmotor International will rapidly expand its scale, planning to expand a total of 200 sales outlets, including the Stellantis & You network, by the end of this year, and to expand the sales network to 500 by 2026. At the same time, Leapmotor International also plans to launch the above models in India, Asia Pacific (excluding Greater China), the Middle East and Africa, and South America from the fourth quarter of 2024.
In the next three years, Leapmotor International will launch at least one new model every year.
In October 2023, Stellantis Group announced that it would invest approximately 1.5 billion euros to acquire approximately 21% of Leapmotor's equity. The above transaction also confirmed the establishment of a "Leapmotor International" joint venture. The joint venture has the exclusive right to export and sell Leapmotor to all other markets in the world outside Greater China, as well as the exclusive right to manufacture Leapmotor products locally.
Six months later, the joint venture was announced to be completed. Tang Weishi praised the speed and efficiency of this cooperation many times at the media communication meeting. He said that the electric models launched by Leapmotor International will compete with existing Chinese brands in major global markets.
