Almost six months ago, the Catalan group EV Motors, parent company of the Ebro brand, entered into an alliance with the Chinese giant Chery to recover the former Nissan factory in the Barcelona free trade zone. This Monday, EV Motors went public – on the BME Growth market – to finance this factory and its production of electric cars.
“The IPO will help us accelerate growth with the aim of reindustrializing the factory and accelerating the brand,” explained EV Motors president Rafael Ruiz before the bell. In other words, he wants to entrench sales and production capacity. The initial idea was to take advantage of the Barcelona factory to assemble Chery vehicles from the start through the Omoda brand, but this production will not take place until the end of next year, Ruiz confirmed.
He also pointed out that Chery participates in two “joint ventures”, one related to the factory and the other to manufacturing; and that the deed of the two companies was finalized last Friday.
This year, production will begin with the Ebro brand. The commitment, he assured, is to invest nearly 300 million euros in the years to come and to maintain the workforce of 500 people from Nissan.
“In October, the contract change was made,” he noted. “The agreement with the workers was respected. A change will begin in November or December. In April, the second; and the third in the middle of next year. “By the end of 2025, 100% of workers will be active and more will likely be hired,” he said.
The company plans to reach 30,000 units produced next year and to market them through its own network of resellers, i.e. more than thirty. When the deal was announced in April, Chery and Ebro set a goal of reaching 150,000 vehicles by 2029.
What the company does not consider bad are the customs duties on the import of Chinese vehicles that the European Union has put in place, in an attempt to put an end to what it considers unfair competition on the costs. “Customs duties do not affect us negatively, we have a factory in Europe and they have no negative impact,” he assured.
