Ford and Geely form a joint venture in Europe: localisation in Spain and at least one shared model

Ford and Geely have officially announced a deal that will help them accelerate their business growth in Europe. A joint venture will be created, in which Ford will hold a 66% stake and Geely Holding a 34% stake. The production base for the new joint venture will be Ford's plant in Almussafes, Spain (a suburb of Valencia, the capital of the province of the same name). Ford will produce two new SUVs here, one of which will be developed jointly with Geely. In turn, Geely will localise two of its SUVs in Valencia, one of which will be the Geely EX5, well known in Russia.

News that Geely was preparing to set up shop at Ford's Valencia plant emerged from unofficial sources as early as May. Today, this information has been officially confirmed, but with clarifications: Geely will not buy part of Ford's Valencia plant, but will instead form a joint venture with Ford, with the plant simply becoming part of it. The joint venture does not yet have a specific name; its official launch is scheduled for the second half of 2027, pending all necessary regulatory approvals.

Ford's Valencia plant opened in 1976 and previously produced various popular passenger cars — the Mondeo family, the Fiesta hatchback, the C-Max compact MPV, and the Galaxy/S-Max minivans — but all of these have now been consigned to history without successors. Currently, the plant, with an annual capacity of 500,000 vehicles, produces only a single model: the ageing third-generation Ford Kuga SUV. As a result, the plant is currently operating at best at a quarter of its capacity.

In May, Ford announced five new passenger car models 'with a rally spirit' for Europe, all of which will hit the market by the end of 2029. Two of these — subcompact electric vehicles on the Renault platform, a hatchback and an SUV — will be produced by Renault at its plants in France.

The other three new Ford models for Europe are SUVs with various powertrains (petrol, hybrid, electric), two of which will be produced at the Valencia plant. One of these SUVs is a European Bronco of Ford's own design, which will differ from the Chinese Bronco and the American Bronco Sport. According to unofficial sources, the European Ford Bronco will be based on a modernised C2 platform from the aforementioned Kuga. Production of the European Bronco will begin in 2028.

The second new Ford SUV with a Spanish address will also enter production in 2028: it will be developed jointly with Geely (effectively on a Geely platform). Officially, this SUV is described as a 'multi-purpose family vehicle', but no technical details are available yet.

What the third new Ford SUV is remains a mystery for now. It appears it will not be produced in Valencia, but at another Ford plant (for example, in Romania) and will not appear before 2029.

Now let's turn to Geely. The official press release does not state which two SUVs the Chinese company plans to localise in Valencia, but Reuters, citing Geely Senior Vice President Victor Yang, reports that one of them will be the mid-sized Geely EX5, already sold in Europe as the Geely E5 (currently imported from China). The second SUV is still under development, meaning it is a completely new model (likely a technical relative of Ford's 'multi-purpose family' SUV). It is expected that both Geely SUVs will begin production at the Valencia plant in 2028.

In the longer term, further expansion of cooperation between Ford and Geely in Europe is possible, meaning new models could emerge that would allow the Valencia plant to operate at full capacity.

We should add that, according to ACEA, Ford's sales in Europe in the first half of this year fell by 15.2% to 192,373 vehicles, while the Geely Holding group managed to increase sales by 8.5% to 225,350 vehicles.