Chinese Home Appliance Giant Gree Supplies Tesla With Auto Chassis

Dong Mingzhu, the chairwoman of Chinese home appliance giant Gree, stated during an online event on October 27 that the company is providing vehicle chassis to Tesla. According to Cailian Press, the firm said that it provides equipment for Tesla’s parts manufacturing process.

Gree added that its subsidiary Zhuhai Gree Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. has provided equipment to many NEV parts manufacturers around the world. At present, its products include industrial robots, numerically-controlled machine tools, intelligent logistics warehousing, large-scale automatic production lines and so on.

Grace Tao, Global Vice President of Tesla, previously stated that the localization rate of Tesla’s supply chain in China has exceeded 95%. At present, the core technologies of Tesla are still motor and battery management, as well as technologies in software and industrial production line automation. For example, integrated casting technology can greatly reduce costs.

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Gree, which was established in 1991, recorded H1 2022 operating income of 95.222 billion yuan ($13.2 billion), a year-on-year increase of 4.58%, while the net profit attributed to parent company reached 11.466 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.25%. In the past 10 years since entering the intelligent equipment arena in 2013, Gree has expanded into different fields in addition to air conditioners and household appliances. It is also exploring the high-end equipment field including precision molds, robots and precision casting, as well as the communication equipment field including Internet of Things devices, smartphones, chips, and big data.

In the NEV industry, Gree acquired Yinlong New Energy (now renamed Gree Titanium), which is engaged in the production, research and development of new energy vehicles and lithium batteries. When Gree decided to acquire Yinlong New Energy in 2016, it said that it was not to build NEVs, but to take advantage of the latter’s lithium battery assets.

Gree Titanium has become a comprehensive group integrating lithium titanate core materials, batteries, electric motor control, charging equipment, intelligent energy storage system, research and development of NEVs and utilization of batteries.

In addition, in 2021, Gree became the controlling shareholder of DunAn Environment, which is a leading enterprise in China’s refrigeration valve business, and has established cooperative relations with BYD, XPeng, and NIO.

Midea, another home appliance giant in China, has started to supply compressors on high-voltage platforms to the 800 V mass-production Silicon Carbide (SiC) platform of XPeng G9. Meanwhile, Haier has cooperated with many car companies, aiming to link cars and home appliances.