South Korean SUV manufacturer KG Mobility has entered into a strategic partnership with China’s Chery Automobile to co-develop a range of vehicles, including plug-in hybrid cars, in a move aimed at expanding its global footprint.
According to a regulatory filing by KG Mobility, the agreement was signed on Friday and includes collaboration on vehicle design, development, manufacturing, and distribution. The partnership will involve sharing the intellectual property of Chery’s T2X platform, a technology used for producing plug-in hybrid vehicles. The agreement covers all global markets, excluding China and the United States, and will last for eight years.
“KGM started as a KG Group family company, and we are successfully pushing to increase production, strengthen our global market strategy, and normalize management by launching models with improved quality, such as the Torres EVX and Actyon,” said KGM Chairman Kwak Jea-sun. He emphasized that the partnership will enable the company to develop new models more efficiently and respond more quickly to changing market demands.
The collaboration is expected to bolster KG Mobility’s production capabilities, allowing it to create a distinctive line of Korean-style SUVs, aligned with the brand’s focus on “practical creativity.” The T2X platform from Chery Automobile is versatile, supporting both plug-in hybrids and traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, offering KG Mobility flexibility in its product development.
Chery Automobile has seen significant growth, selling 1.75 million vehicles from January to September this year, a 40% increase year-on-year. The company also became China’s largest vehicle exporter in 2023, shipping around 937,000 units overseas. Chery was ranked 385th in Fortune’s August list of the world’s top 500 companies, with annual revenues of $39 billion.
