Zeekr? Geely adds yet another EV brand

Another week, another new electrified experiment announced by the Chinese automotive octopus Geely.

This time it’s Zeekr Company Limited, which is a joint-venture of Zhejiang Geely Holdings and Geely Automobile Holdings and described as “a new electric mobility technology and solutions company”.

Zeekr, or Ji Ke in its home market, will start selling premium EVs in China in late 2021 and plans to have a full line-up in place by 2025. Export market are also being targeted, although they are unnamed at the moment.

But before we go on with Zeekr, let’s check out where else the ever-expanding Geely conglomerate and its owner Li Shufu have auto investments.

Well, there’s the Geely auto brand itself, which is one of China’s biggest domestic brands.

To that you can add Sweden’s Volvo, which has announced plans to go all-electric by 2030.

Other established brands Geely has purchased in recent years include the British sportscar maker Lotus, which launches the Evija electric supercar in 2021.

At the other end of the scale is the Malaysian economy car maker Proton, in which Geely has a major stake.

New brands Geely has created include the Polestar EV spin-off out of Volvo and Lynk & Co, which also has Swedish links, targets young professionals andis soon to launch the Zero EV (pictured top).

In China, Geely has recently created Geometry, which makes affordable EVs primarily for the domestic market.

Even more recently re-established is Maple, which is a budget EV brand. Geely also has created the commercial EV maker Farizon Auto.

Separate to all this is the London Electric Vehicle Company, a taxi and van maker, which its name suggests, is based in the UK (and run by former Audi Australia boss Joerg Hofmann).

And separately again, Geely has teamed up with Taiwan’s Foxconn – best known as the maker of Apple smartphones – to be a third party supplier for brands wishing to build EVs.

Geely has also announced it will build EVs for the Chinese search engine giant Baidu.

And – yep there’s more – Geely is also a major investor in Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and the two companies have announced the next generation of Smart mini-cars will be electric and made in China.

Anyway, now back to Zeekr. Like Lynk & Co and other members of the Geely empire it will exploit the new Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) to underpin its vehicles.

To that it will add its own battery technologies, battery management systems, electric motor technologies and electric vehicle supply chain support.

In a press release Geely said Zeekr would “create a new ecosystem that is focused on the full integration of the end user into a new super ecosystem focusing on the full service of end user requirements with an innovation as standard approach in terms of sales and servicing.”

Good, glad that’s clear then…