Geely Auto expands facilities for new models

Shanghai, November 10 (Gasgoo.com) While the global auto market is sliding and many Chinese carmakers are mulling job cuts, Geely Auto bucks the trend by expansion. Its Hunan-based Xiangtan facility for producing the Geely Vision model was inaugurated last week, the Linhai base has been re-vamped and other plants are also being expanded, said xinhuanet.com today.

Meanwhile, Geely Auto has restructured its brand lineup, planning to phase out its existing Geely and Maple brands and re-designing them, among others, as three new brands of Eagle, Imperial (Dihao) and Shanghai Yinglun.

The newly expanded Xiangtan base, now with a monthly capacity of 3,000 units, will focus on developing and making models of the Vision series for the domestic and global markets. The Xiangtan plant has made Geely Kingkong sedans for one year, but this brand will give way to the Vision production.

The Linhai facility in Zhejian province has made the Vision and Freedom Cruiser Freedom models, and the Vision production line has now moved to Xiangtan. A Geely employee said that the Freedom Cruiser is currently the best-selling model of Geely, with about 70,000 units sold a year, but the Linhai plant has only an annual two-shift capacity of 100,000 units, not enough to make the two models at the same time.

The Linhai base has stopped producing the Merrie, Haoqing, Uliou and Beauty Leopard (BL) models and the BL will be re-designed as a model called China Dragon. Recently the facility has been revamped and expanded and will mass-produce the newly launched Geely Panda model as well.

There are four other Geely plants across China. The Jinan facility will make high-end Geely model such as Geely FC-2, the Lanzhou base will focus on assembling Kingkong and Freedom Cruiser cars for the northwestern Chinese and East Aisa markets, the Chengdu plant will make Geely SUVs, and the Guilin base will be a new R&D center for Geely Auto.

After its strategic brand restructuring, Geely Auto will shift its focus onto making high-end cars, with more than 40 new models (on 15 platforms) to hit each segment of the up-market. By promoting its all-new brand series - Eagle, Imperial (Dihao), Shanghai Yinglun and more in the years ahead, Geely Auto aims to reach annual sales of 2 million cars by 2015.