Ebro, the reborn electric vehicle brand of the EV Motors group, and the Chinese automobile company Chery Automobile have closed the agreement for the reindustrialization of the former Nissan plant in the Zona Franca of Barcelona. After months of negotiations, the two companies yesterday launched a call for the official act of signing the investment on Friday in the Catalan capital. With the agreement, a long process of almost four years is completed to find an investor interested in giving a second life to the historic factory facilities.
In recent weeks, negotiations between the two companies accelerated with the trip to China of several executives from EV Motors. Several senior officials from the Generalitat also traveled to the company's offices in Wuhu (China) to try to help resolve the latest fringes. Finally, the CEO of Ebro, Pedro Calef, concluded the negotiation with the executive vice-president of Chery Automobile, Guibing Zhang, in a meeting during the day yesterday. The Chinese group, which includes the brands Jaecoo, Chery, Exeed and Omoda, will become the first car firm of the Asian giant to manufacture in Europe.
The agreement between the two companies is structured through a joint venture to manufacture electric cars, in which Ebro will have a majority stake. The forecast is that Chery will start production of its Omoda brand first, followed by the manufacture of the first Ebro model, in the fourth quarter of the year. Close sources point out that both companies could take advantage of the assembly lines of the old Japanese brand and remember that several Ebro vehicles are based on old Nissan models.
These sources indicate that Chery plans to start the activity only with the assembly of its Omoda 5 model. Thus, the parts of the vehicle will go from China to Barcelona, where assembly will be completed. In the medium term, the company could be the entire manufacturing process, which would have a much greater economic impact on the territory because it would require working with local suppliers.
The contract with the Chinese group guarantees enough workload to absorb around 600 ex-Nissan workers pending relocation, and who have training contracts until October. Other times, Chery has indicated that, when the plant reaches full capacity, the workforce will increase to 1,000 jobs.
The reindustrialization of the old Nissan plant has not been an easy road. After the closure of the facilities in 2021, the different parties involved (Spanish government, Generalitat, Consorci de la Zona Franca, Nissan and the unions) launched a table for reindustrialization. The process aroused the interest of several companies, such as the also Chinese Great Wall (GWM) or BYD, but none went further. Chery's interest was already expressed in those first steps, but the negotiations did not gain momentum until a year later.
Finally, Goodman assumed the role of promoter of the project while the reindustrialization was awarded to QEV Technologies and EV Motors. At the start of this year, the Ebro and Btech holding took on the reindustrialization project alone and the negotiations with Chery. "The agreement culminates successfully and in a very satisfactory way the reindustrialization process. We guarantee a new manufacturer, a tractor element in the engine chain. It repositions us in the 21st century, in electric mobility", assessed yesterday the minister for Enterprise and Work, Roger Torrent, who was in China last week to support the negotiations.
