West Midlands car manufacturer concludes £1.5bn JV with China

A car manufacturer has agreed a new £1.5bn joint venture deal with Chinese investors that will create 220 jobs in Leamington Spa.

Detroit Electric has agreed the deal with Far East Smarter Energy Group of China and will invest £300m into Detroit Electric’s European operations over the next four years.

The funding to enable the development and production of a range of electric vehicles over the next three years.

Initially, this will fund the completion of the final development phase of DE’s all-electric SP:01 sports car and then the start of volume production at the company’s Leamington Spa facilities.

The deal is the second major investment in the Warwickshire automotive industry to be announced today. Jaguar Land Rover has also revealed it is to invest £200m expanding facilities at its site in Gaydon.

Albert Lam, chairman and chief executive of Detroit Electric, said: “We have been working exceptionally hard over a long period to establish this joint venture and to secure funding for our ambitious new electric vehicle programme.

“So I am delighted to be able to announce this new joint venture which represents a significant boost to vehicle manufacturing and the EV [electric vehicle] industry in Europe and an important new step towards bringing our family of EVs to market.”

Series production of the SP:01 is planned to start later this year.

In parallel to the SP:01 activities in the UK, the new joint venture will establish an all-new design, research and development, testing and production facility. 

The focus of this new technical and manufacturing centre will be the development of a family of Detroit Electric vehicles for launch in the coming years. 

First in the pipeline is an all-new battery electric sports utility vehicle (SUV) that will enter production in late 2018. A third model is planned for launch in 2020.

To accommodate assembly lines for those new models, the company plans to expand its existing facilities in Leamington Spa and the workforce will double to more than 400 directly employed workers, and as many again potentially employed indirectly through the local supply chain.

This will include the creation of 120 engineering jobs and 100 manufacturing jobs. 

By 2020, the joint venture aims to be selling 100,000 Detroit Electric vehicles annually in the rapidly expanding electric vehicle markets around the world.

The Far East Smarter Energy Group is a publicly traded company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Based in Yixing, China, it is primarily engaged in the design, development and manufacture of electrical systems, battery manufacturing and technologies for transportation and energy storage. 

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