Sokon Jinkang New Energy Electric Vehicles
Chongqing Sokon Industry Group is the shareholder in Chongqing Jinkang electric vehicles. Sokon registered a company, SF Motors Inc in the USA in September 2016 and in October 2016 acquired the US-based AC Propulsion Inc. for $100 million. The company also signed an agreement with Tesla co-founder and previous CEO Martin Eberhard as the company’s new energy vehicle consultant. Sokon’s EV start-up, Chongqing Jinkang, received a coveted EV production permit to produce 50,000 electric vehicles per annum. The company presented an investment project of $375 million (2.5 billion yuan) to qualify for the production certificate. Sokon also partnered with Dongfeng in the production of small commercial vehicles and the Fengguang SUV. Sokon is also known as Ruichi electric cars. SF Motors acquired the assembly plant of AM General, which manufactured the Hummer 2 and Mercedes Benz R-Class. SF Motors will produce two EVs in 2019, a C-Class luxury model expected by mid-2019, and a mid-range B-Class expected early 2019. Jinkang also plans to manufacture its own batteries and electric drive trains. The 333,333 square meters plant is located in Shapingba District, Chongqing. The assembly line is developed to produce 5GWH high-performance power cells, 200,000 electric drive systems, and 200,000 electric control systems. The factory is scheduled to be completed by 2019. |
Sokon Jinkang New Energy Electric Car Strategy in the news
2018 Week 48 Chongqing Jinkang opens EV plant
will start production of the SF Motors SF5 EV
Crossover by the end of 2018 as the plant in Chongqing official came in
operation this week. The first units of the line will be test cars with
the expected list date of the SF5 is only in Q3 2019. Jinkang new
Energy is in possession of a 50,000 annual unit permit for the
production of electric vehicles from the Chinese Ministry of Information
and Technology. The plant employees over 800 robots to automate the welding, stamping, painting and assemble assembly, transportation and loading processes in four workshops. The Jinkang plant also uses AGV robots with autonomous capabilities to identify and distribute parts within the plant. The production line can produce any type of vehicle form compact cars to luxury SUVs and is designed to quickly adjust between different model types. The official investment for the plant is ¥2.5 billion.
2018 Week 11 Sokon to invest further in SF Motors
Sokon announced that it will increase its investment in SF Motors to
$200 million. Sokon will add an additional $30 million to its wholly
owned subsidiaries’ capital structure in anticipation of the launch of
its EV on the 28 of March 2018. The vehicle is expected to be launched
in 2019.
2017 Week 25 Chongqing Sokon expands to USA
one of the 15 Chinese companies with EV production certificates
and owner of US based AC Propulsion this week acquired US AM General’s
auto assets for $110 million. The acquisition includes the Hummer plant
in Indiana and will be housed within its USA unit, SF Motors. Sokon has made a number of aggressive moves the last 12 months, including the signing of Tesla
co-founder Martin Eberhard but so far has not made any clear indication
of how all these actions will translate into a strategy.
2017 Week 2 Chongqing Sokon gets production permit
Chongqing Sokon receives the 8th electric vehicle production
certificate, allowing the company to produce 50,000 electric vehicles
per year.
2016 Week 42 Sokon acquires US based AC Propulsion
China’s Chongqing Sokon Industry Group this week announced that is is to
acquire electric vehicle company AC Propulsion Inc. for $100m.
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