Despite the scenario of great uncertainties in the national automotive industry, there are still automakers willing to invest here. One of them is Great Wall Motors, the largest manufacturer in China without state participation and which will start selling its cars in Brazil from the last quarter of 2022.
The first step of the company’s journey into the Brazilian market began last year, when Great Wall acquired the former Mercedes-Benz plant in Iracemápolis, São Paulo. The German brand had stopped producing vehicles in Brazil in 2020.
Now at the end of January, the Chinese giant has detailed its plans for here a little more. Check out:
Investments in the country
The Iracemápolis plant has an installed capacity for the production of 20,000 vehicles per year. Great Wall announced that the assembly line is being fully adapted to align with the company’s production methods in China. The expectation is that the Brazilian operation will be the company’s largest outside its country of origin.
Initially, R$ 4 billion will be invested here by 2025. This money will be used to upgrade the factory, as well as research and development here. By the end of 2025, Great Wall expects to earn BRL 30 billion and generate around 2,000 direct jobs. Between 2026 and 2032, the brand’s plan is to inject another R$ 6 billion to expand the production capacity of the assembly line to up to 100,000 units per year.
The first cars should still arrive imported from China and will arrive here by the end of the year. The first national units should actually leave Iracemápolis as of 2023. According to the Great Wall, the goal is for these first cars made in Brazil to have a 60% nationalization rate.
By the end of 2022, the company’s plan is to have concessionaires covering all states, which it called “100% coverage of the national territory”. In 18 months, the goal is to have 130 points of sale distributed among 112 cities and around 30 different groups of distributors.
The Iracemápolis plant will also be responsible for supplying other markets in the Mercosur region, in addition to other countries on the American continent. Great Wall’s plans — and investments — in Brazil also include working together with universities to develop technologies involving energy generation from ethanol and also installing infrastructure and chargers for electric vehicles here.
Electric and hybrid only
Great Wall has already warned: its cars in Brazil will always be electrified, whether hybrid or purely electric. The point is that they will all share a new platform from the company that will still be presented in China in the coming months, called LMN. So it’s hard to say for sure what such models will be.
What is known is that Great Wall Motors works with several brands. Among the main ones are Haval, which focuses on SUVs, Poer, which specializes in pickup trucks, ORA, which works with electric vehicles and TANK, which produces models with greater off-road capability and luxury SUVs.
For Brazil, Great Wall says it will focus on the SUV and pickup segments. Thus, the most likely brands here would be Haval and Poer, with ORA still a possibility because of battery-powered cars.
Regardless of the brand, the powertrain of the models manufactured in Brazil must be the same. In the case of hybrids, they will be of the pluggable type, which can also have the batteries charged in the socket. The combustion engine will be a 1.5 turbo, which will work more as a range extender.
Who will move the vehicle will be an electric propulsion – or more – powered by batteries with 45 kWh of capacity. With this, the power should vary between 230 hp and 430 hp, while the torque will be between 41.8 kgfm and 77.7 kgfm. All-wheel drive will be an option.
In the case of hybrid cars, Great Wall states that models with the LMN platform will have consumption between 75 km/l and 208 km/l. Pluggable hybrids will also be able to use fast chargers, which can recover 80% charge in 30 minutes. The purely electric range of these vehicles will reach 200 km.
As for the 100% electric cars with the LMN architecture made here, Great Wall says that the models are still under development, but will use batteries with up to 85 kWh of capacity and without the use of cobalt, a rare and expensive material.
In this case, there will be 5 power options, ranging from 61 hp to 272 hp. According to the company, the hybrid models should be the first to arrive initially imported and later with local production. Likewise, a second step will be the introduction of 100% electric cars.
Check out the Great Wall models
Source: CNN Brasil
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