Geely. From refrigerators to flying cars
Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd (ZGH), commonly known as Geely, is owned by businessman Li Shufu. It is China's second largest automaker, a multinational automobile company that owns Chinese and European brands. The annual sales volume of cars exceeds 1 million units, starting from 2017.
Level-80 son of your mother’s friend
Legend has it that 23-year-old Li Shufu borrowed money from his parents in 1986 to develop refrigerator production. Apparently, things were going well, because about 10 years later, Li Shufu bought a bankrupt state-owned motorcycle manufacturing enterprise and began producing light-duty vans. Shufu started producing passenger cars in 2002. Then, apparently, things went even better, as in 2004, Geely Auto held an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Geely is a dynamically developing automotive brand of Geely Auto, which is part of the Geely Holding Group, founded in 1986. The first Geely car was released in 1998. Since then, the company has gone from a follower to one of the leaders in the scientific and technological field.
In 2008, Geely offered Ford to buy the Volvo Cars brand. And two years later the company bought this prestigious European car brand with a touch of snobbery (remember: “we have the safest cars in the world”?). Not bad for a guy who invested in refrigerators using his mother's money?
On a grand scale
Geely conducts its activities on a grand scale, quickly and aggressively, taking over other companies, buying shares, and conquering the global market. From the start of the production to the purchase of Volvo, Geely cars have already been actively sold in the markets of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America.
In 2009, Geely bought Australian automatic transmission manufacturer Drivetrain Systems International Pty Ltd. In 2013, Geely acquired Manganese Bronze Holdings, the only remaining division of the iconic London Taxi Company. However, attempts to gain a foothold in Russia with the Derways project failed, as Western companies were already doing business there. At the same time, Geely managed to succeed in Belarus with BelGee. In 2014, Geely bought the British EV start-up, Emerald Automotive, which led to Geely's explosive growth in electric vehicle development that we are seeing now.
Geely develops luxury electric vehicles and hybrids under the Smart brand with Daimler AG, internal combustion engines with Volvo Car Group, owns the Malaysian brand Proton, the British Lotus and the American Terrafugia.
In 2017, Geely bought out a 51% majority stake in Lotus Cars from DRB-HICOM and a 49.9% stake in PROTON Holdings, completely bought out Terrafugia, an American flying car manufacturer. In the same year, it became the largest shareholder of the Volvo Group (trucks and special equipment) and acquired a 9.7% stake in Daimler-Benz. In 2019, Geely invested heavily in Volocopter, a German manufacturer of ultralight electric helicopters co-owned by Daimler-Benz. In 2020, Geely persuaded Hualing Xingma, a Chinese heavy truck manufacturer, to transfer it more than 15% of the shares. And, for now, Geely's latest aggressive action is the announcement of a joint venture for the production of electric vehicles with Baidu.
Model range
Geely’s model range is quite impressive. The main Geely brand includes the following products:
- Boyue, Binyue, Xingyue, Geely ICON BMA, Xingyue L, Haoyue SUVs;
- Borui GE, Binrui, Xingrui sedans;
- Geely Jiaji minivans
The Emgrand brand is well known in Europe, in particular, the Emgrand S SUV and Emgrand GL sedans. The Vision model range is being actively promoted with the Vision X3, Vision X6 SUVs and the Vision FC3 sedan. The Maple brand is also known, after it was revived in 2020 as Maple NEV with an 80V minivan and a 30X SUV.
There’s also up-and-coming brand Farizon, which already has six cars, while the all-electric brand Geometry A offers a mid-size sedan and will have 10 more models by 2025. And there is also a brand of microelectric vehicles, Zhidou Auto or ZD Auto, which already has three ready-made models.
Geely owns 15 automobile factories and 8 factories for the production of transmissions and engines, research centers in China, Sweden, England and Germany, design offices in Shanghai, Gothenburg, Barcelona, California and Coventry.
Geely's business is huge and diverse, the company even has its own travel agency. But in our case, Geely's prospects in the Israeli market are more interesting. In December 2020, Union Motors signed an agreement on the exclusive representation of Geely in Israel. Presumably, the delivery of Geely and Geometry brand cars will begin in 2022.
