From：Internet Info Agency 2018-10-25 17:44:54
This July 10, BMW Group and Great Wall Motor (GWM) signed a joint venture agreement to establish Spotlight Automotive Ltd. in China to produce MINI electric vehicles. IIA learned from GWM that Wei Jianjun, GWM chairman, Klaus Frohlich, member of the board of management of BMW AG, together with Zhao Guoqing, senior vice president of GWM and chairman of the Spotlight Automotive Ltd. and other delegates visited the base in which the Spotlight Automotive project sited in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. At present, the project name has been approved, and the general layout plan of the project factory has been completed.
Daniel Boettger, BMW senior vice president and CTO of Spotlight Automotive, Liu Xiangshang, Head of GWM Production and Planning Management, COO of Spotlight Automotive, and Wu Yanyan, Head of Governmental and External Affairs Asia, BMW Group accompanied the visit. This is the second time the BMW Group Chairman Klaus Frohlich came to China to mention the joint venture project since October 10.
Highly concerned about the project
February 23, GWM announced that it would sign an agreement with BMW. Since then, the joint venture project has been advancing at an alarming rate and is highly concerned by the two sides, local government, the automotive industry and all sectors of society.
July 10, GWM and BMW Group formally signed a joint venture agreement, naming the new company Spotlight Automotive Ltd.. August 13, GWM signed an investment agreement with Zhangjiagang city municipal government for the vehicle joint venture project, which formally marked the GWM-BMW joint venture settling down in Zhangjiagang.
October 22, the two sides met again and made an on-site visit to inspect the progress of the construction of the project, listened to the progress report, and met with governmental leaders of Jiangsu province and Zhangjiagang city.
During the visit, Mr. Wei mentioned that Zhangjiagang boasts obvious location advantages and developed transportation, the largest port throughput among county regions and automobile import port. After more than a year of cooperation and exchange, GWM has fully affirmed the pragmatic and honest working style if the Zhangjiagang government. Mr. Wei also said: “BMW Group is an internationally renowned automobile company with a history over a hundred years. GWM attaches great importance to this cooperation project with the BMW Group. We will spare no effort to invest resources to create more value for the project and partners, and will also contribute to the local economic development of Zhangjiagang.
Klaus Florich said that the Spotlight Automotive project is important to BMW. It is the result of careful decision and long-term commitment of BMW, which has launched a new stage for the BMW to develop the Chinese market. He also mentioned that the Chinese auto market is vast. In this project, BMW will jointly develop new models with GMW, introduce more emerging technologies, and create a new model of “R&D in China, Production in China, and Delivered to the Globe”.
During the meeting with the delegation, Lou Qinjian, Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee Secretary said that the establishment of the joint venture between GWM and BMW was jointly witnessed by the leaders of governments of China and Germany. Jiangsu Province will vigorously support enterprise development and project construction, and believes that the cooperation will achieve fruitful results. Shen Guofang, Secretary of the Zhangjiagang Municipal Party Committee, said that GWM is the pride of the national automobile industry, while BMW is the benchmark for the global automotive industry. “Spotlight Automotive” has created a new role model for the opening up and cooperation of the Chinese auto industry and has become a powerful witness for deepening all-round strategic cooperation between China and Germany.
Mutual benefit and Win-Win Cooperation
It is worth noting that after China phasing out share-holding limits for foreign investors in auto manufacturing sectors, GWM and BMW still adhered to the 50:50 shareholding ratio, which proves that the two sides are carrying out this cooperation in a completely equal manner.
Just as Mr. Wei stated at the media conference after the signing ceremony: "This cooperation between the two sides is not a traditional joint venture model, nor a foundry production, but an all-round deepening cooperation in R&D, design, production and marketing. This cooperation is based on equality and complementarity. There are no technical barriers, but mutual benefit and win-win cooperation."
In the Chinese auto market, GWM has worked hard for many years. In the field of new energy, it has already planned the most critical technology of battery, motor and electric control system, and has achieved great results. At present, GWM has invested more than 1 billion RMB in research and development of power batteries, built batteries, mechanism analysis, PACK, BMS trial production laboratory and battery trial production workshop, test center, analysis center, etc. The power battery production base is also under construction. At the same time, GWM has made significant progress in intelligent network and automatic driving. It is planned to achieve fully-automatic driving without intervention by 2025.
Focusing on new energy area
As global economic integration further develops, Sino-foreign cooperation in the automotive industry has begun to gradually get rid of the "market-for-technology" routine that was under policies protection. The auto joint venture currently is more based on mutual benefit.
For BMW, choosing to cooperate with GWM means finding a strong “comrade-in-arms”, while for GWM, choosing BMW as a partner not only because of BMW’s brand influence, but also its strong technical background, especially BMW's leading technical strength in the field of new energy.
Currently, the automotive industry is transforming from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles. In the field of new energy, BMW is a pioneer and leader with advanced new energy technology, perfect product layout, strong R&D strength and rich market experience. And its products have been introduced in the market for many years. In 2017, BMW's NEV sales have exceeded 100,000 units, and is expected to exceed 140,000 units this year. Moreover, the BMW i Series and plug-in hybrid models have been marketed for many years and have maintained a good reputation worldwide.
It can be said that the new joint venture company has innate high-quality resources, including technologies, product R&D experience, and etc., which will all inject vitality into the development of GWM’s new energy vehicles, so that it can quickly make breakthroughs in new energy technologies and products. When combining BMW's new energy technologies and experience with GWM's self-developed platform, GWM’s high-level NEVs will be given birth, thereby further improving the overall R&D level of GWM's NEVs.
