Yun 100 plus city commuter car

Following the announcement of the VW Group's third joint venture in June 2017, Ford also announced in August 2017 that it would sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish its third joint venture. Ford's new joint venture partner, Zotye, is a medium-sized private OEM in Zhejiang province. The newly established Zotye Ford joint venture will build an EV production plant in Zhejiang province which will assemble 100,000 units per year, as well as construct a sales and service network. Ford is the first foreign capital OEM joint venture partner of Zotye Auto.

The predecessor of Zotye Auto was an automobile parts supplier established in 1992. The company built their own plant by acquiring an automotive production line from another company. After that, the company entered the automotive industry after a series of adsorption mergers and acquisitions. The sales of Zotye have increased rapidly since 2010, selling 333,000 units in 2016, representing a 49.4% increase y/y. As far as New Energy Vehicles (NEV) are concerned, the company has been primarily focusing on the sale of city commuter cars, selling 37,000 EVs in 2016, representing an increase of 51.6% y/y, making it the second largest manufacturer of EVs in, following BYD. However, because the introduction of EVs by competitors intensified in 2017, Zotye sales of EVs in the first half of 2017 (January - June) dropped the market position of Zotye to 5th place. The company plans to raise the percentage of NEV vehicles in their product portfolio to 60%, targeting a sales volume of over 800,000 units by the end of 2020.

Related Reports:
China sales in the first half of 2017: 13.35 million vehicles sold, and growth rate slowing (Aug.2017)
Auto Shanghai 2017 (Part 4): Geely, Great Wall Motor, BYD, Chery, JAC, Zotye, Lifan, and emerging EV OEMs (Jun.2017)