GAC AION to close A round of strategic investor introduction in Q3

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- GAC AION, the NEV-dedicated arm of GAC Group, plans to complete its A round of strategic investor introduction in the third quarter this year, but it has not decided whether to be listed on the Chinese mainland or in Hong Kong yet, Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC AION, said last Sunday at the China EV100 Forum.

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The NEV maker closed a new round of capital increase last week with a total of 2.566 billion yuan ($402.491 million) raised, 1.782 billion yuan ($279.516 million) of which were contributed by the equity incentive objects consisting of 679 employees with GAC AION and 115 R&D staff members of GAC R&D Center.

Mr. Gu also revealed GAC AION's self-built battery trial-production line would go into operation at the end of this year. Involving a total investment of 336 million yuan ($52.703 million), the facility will produce batteries using the company's in-house developed battery technology, like the silicon sponge anode cell technology. The construction kicked off on March 10, 2022.

Gu added that the trial-production line will produce batteries on a small scale, while the large volume of batteries will be still supplied by dedicated battery suppliers. In the short term, GAC AION will not consider replacing batteries offered by third-party suppliers with its self-produced ones.

Besides, Mr. Gu also said authorities are expected to issue relevant policies to regulate and control prices of upstream raw materials, in a bid to prevent raw materials from being excessively monopolized.

He also proposed that the supply of power batteries should be prioritized over the energy storage batteries. The NEV subsidies for 2023 and the next several years should be launched as soon as possible to facilitate companies in making development plans and allocate resources.