Jeep's Parent Company Is Considering Building Chinese EVs In North America

Stellantis is exploring manufacturing Chinese-branded electric vehicles in North America. The CEO said there is an opportunity to assemble Leapmotor-branded EVs in Mexico and potentially Canada, while the United States has no space for such an approach. Stellantis holds a majority stake in a joint venture with Leapmotor, giving access to relatively low-cost EVs that could be assembled locally. In Europe, Stellantis builds Leapmotor cars in Spain and is discussing building Dongfeng Voyah models in France. Leapmotor currently has a small presence in Mexico, with earlier plans to import cars from China, which could change if local production begins. Canada has opened its market to Chinese-made EVs with an import cap of 49,000 per year.

"Stellantis is looking into manufacturing Chinese-branded EVs in North America. The CEO said there is an opportunity to assemble Chinese-branded EVs in Mexico and Canada, but there is currently no space for doing something like this in the United States. The company sees opportunities in expanding the manufacturing and sales of Leapmotor-branded cars to Mexico, and potentially Canada, while not expecting similar activity in the U.S."

"The conglomerate holds a majority stake in a joint venture with Leapmotor, enabling access to relatively cheap electric vehicles that could be assembled locally. In Europe, Stellantis is using one of its plants in Spain to build Leapmotor cars, and it's now talking to Dongfeng to build more expensive Voyah models in France. This approach reflects experience with building cars from partially assembled kits or knock-down kits."

"Leapmotor has a small presence in Mexico, but the cars were initially slated to come from China. That may change if one of Stellantis' plants in the region starts building the vehicles locally. The same goes for Canada. Leapmotor has not yet established a presence in the United States' northern neighbor, but the country has opened the gates to Chinese-made EVs, limiting the input to 49,000 imports per year."

Read at insideevs.com