Geely Group’s recently-created China Euro Vehicle Technology (CEVT) R&D centre in tandem with Volvo, says it is working on “opening doors” for suppliers as its CEO highlighted component opportunities.
Addressing delegates at last week’s Scandinavian automotive component body, FKG’s, Annual Supplier Forum in Gothenburg, CEVT CEO, Mats Fagerhag, outlined China’s massive urban influx trend and the challenges of pollution among other issues.
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CEVT is an R&D centre in Gothenburg to develop modular architecture and components for next-generation C-segment cars for both groups.
“In Sweden, we take it for granted, clean air,” said Fagerhag. “But high emissions and pollution are a reality in many Chinese cities. Clean air is more important than the colour of a car.
“One of the things that strikes you is the figures we are talking about the whole time, huge figures. The total population is 712m people in the urban population, a huge increase.
“The Chinese government is also starting to take this seriously with subsidies for electric cars.”
Geely maintains the modular architecture will help achieve synergies through economies of scale and scope in terms of development, testing, and procurement.
“A global market requires global solutions, we will have production in at least both China and Europe, which is why we want to favour suppliers with a global solution,” said Fagerhag.
“What we are working on is opening new doors for you.” [suppliers].
The CEVT CEO added China was currently the largest car market in the world and the fastest growing, with 15.5m vehicles sold on an annual basis last year.
SUVs are the largest group of vehicles sold, but an increasing trend is consumers buying their second new car.
Younger people are more prepared, said Fagerhag, to pay a higher price for environmentally friendly cars. “This is something Volvo and Geely are working on and they see women as an increasingly important group,” he said.
[But] “It is not just China growing quickly – it is the whole eastern Asian region that is growing. We will export cars from China to countries around China.”
