GAC NEV industrial zone to be put into production in 2018

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- GAC Group established a new energy vehicle (NEV) subsidiary in July this year, which showed up in Auto Guangzhou 2017 as a new brand. The intelligent-connected and NEV industrial zone has been in construction and will be put into production by the end of 2018, and afterwards in 2019, GAC NEV plans to launch two vehicle models every year.

GAC Group has a long-term plan for NEV development. To implement the plan, GAC held a cornerstone rite for the new NEV industrial zone in April, granted the first-round investment of RMB 4.697 billion into the construction of the factory whose annual production capacity is expected to reach 200 thousand cars, and later will cooperate with partners to invest a total of more than RMB 45 billion into the NEV industrial zone. Besides, GAC will focus on new energy development through the cooperation with Huawei on smart communications development and the agreement with Tencent on networking cooperation.

GAC NEV enjoys a technical advantage of new energy development. While the range of GAC Trumpchi GE3 is up to 310 km, GAC NEV will launch models providing a range of 500 km by 2019, and 500 to 600 km by 2020. In addition, GAC NEV is ambitious to lower the current the costs of "three electrics" (electric battery, electric engine, electric control system) by half, nearly the cost of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

In GAC NEV's plan to reach L3 or L4-level intelligent driving, and conduct test driving in the new zone by 2020, it's foreseen that the two new vehicle models launched in 2019 may provide a range of 400 km with higher-end self-driving assisting technology.

More important, GAC NEV is also proactively planning new independent sales channels, especially experience centers, in more small and medium cities. Chen Wan, marketing department director of GAC NEV sales company, said, "We will produce many amazing products, and provide better systems and longer range in the future. In the meantime, we will secure a wide range of sales channels, including those for GE3, so that every consumer has easy access to our products."