Geely is Building a "Stateless" Global Car

Over the past two days, we attended Geely's interim performance briefing, which mainly highlighted the "123456" strategy and the 5th Generation Energy Replenishment Technology.

Well, understanding this from an outsider's perspective, it simply means Geely wants to accelerate its own globalization.

If you observe closely, you will find that the so-called "product globalization" of most domestic automakers nowadays is a form of pseudo-globalization. Either they manufacture products domestically and ship them out to sell, or they build factories locally for local production.

But Geely's globalization is not this model; it uses others' factories to build its own cars. So you see why Geely spent 221 million euros to acquire a stake in the Ford factory in Spain, and why it upgrades the capacity of the Proton factory in Malaysia from 200,000 units to 500,000 units. Actually, these are both Version 2.0 of "local car manufacturing".

Although many might think that if a car's assembly, supply chain, and sales channels are all handled by foreigners, it is no longer considered a "Chinese car", foreign consumers seeing production sources outside China theoretically makes it easier to boost sales volume, after all, their stereotype is that "Made in China is cheap but dare not buy".

Actually, the 5th Generation Energy Replenishment Technology also addresses the same issue, which is solving deeper-level user fears, because only if users dare to buy, can the cars be sold.

Therefore, the true essence of Geely's globalization is to strip "Chinese car" labels from the products, finally transforming itself into a global brand without national attributes.

Consumers can reject "Made in China", but it is hard to reject a car produced in Spain, assembled by Europeans, with transparent technical standards.