Some NIO Manufacturing Assets to be Acquired by JAC Motors
JAC Motors, a Chinese automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturer, announced on December 22 that it plans to acquire some of the project assets (including equipment and tooling assets) held by a subsidiary of NIO in China’s Anhui Province. The transaction is estimated to be worth 1.704 billion yuan ($244.1 million).
The announcement also shows that the acquisition of assets will not affect the normal production and operation of JAC Motors. If this transaction is successfully implemented, it will help to continue to deepen the company’s strategic cooperation with NIO.
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JAC Motors is a comprehensive automobile enterprise group integrating research, production, sales and service of a full range of commercial vehicles, passenger cars and powertrains. In April 2016, it began working with NIO. At that time, both companies confirmed that the first-phase production capacity was 50,000 vehicles.
As of December 12, 2022, the 300,000th vehicle of JAC NIO Production Base was completed. Previously, based on a stable cooperation foundation, the two sides also established a joint venture company in March 2021.
To a certain extent, the manufacturing cooperation between the two companies is a relatively successful case. The manufacturing cooperation model promotes the transformation of automobile enterprises from owning heavy assets to owning light assets and has influenced many other car companies. XPeng Motors has chosen to reach manufacturing cooperation with FAW Haima Automobile, while Baidu and Foxconn have chosen to partner with Geely. Even Apple’s automobile business is also looking for manufacturing companies.
The overall sales volume of JAC Motors is weak. Although the sales volume of its pure electric passenger cars has increased significantly, it is also facing quality complaints from Chinese customers. At the same time, its performance is hardly optimistic. On the evening of December 7, the company released the production and sales report of November. The report shows that the company sold 45,300 vehicles in the past month, down 7.38% year-on-year. From January to November this year, the company sold 457,500 vehicles, down 5.12% year-on-year.
