Ford and Geely Establish Joint Venture in Europe: Localization in Spain and at Least One Co-Developed Model

Ford and Geely have officially announced a deal that will help them accelerate business development in Europe. A joint venture will be created, in which Ford’s share will be 66% and Geely Holding’s share will be 34%. The production base of the new JV 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 crossovers here, one of which will be developed jointly with Geely. In turn, Geely will localize two of its crossovers in Valencia, one of which will be the Geely EX5, well known in Russia.

The fact that Geely was preparing to set up shop at Ford’s Valencia plant became known from unofficial sources back in May. Today this information has been officially confirmed, but with clarifications: Geely will not buy part of Ford’s Valencia plant, but will create a joint venture with Ford, and the plant will simply become part of it. The JV does not yet have a specific name; its official launch is scheduled for the second half of 2027 after receiving all necessary regulatory approvals.

Ford’s Valencia plant was launched 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 them have already gone down in history without successors. Currently, with a capacity of 500,000 cars per year, the plant produces a single model — the aging third-generation Ford Kuga crossover. Thus, the plant is currently loaded at best at a quarter of its capacity.

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

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

The second new Ford crossover with Spanish registration will also go on the assembly line in 2028: it will be developed jointly with Geely (in fact, on the Geely platform). Officially, this crossover is described as a “multifunctional family” vehicle, but no technical details are available yet.

What the third new Ford crossover is remains a mystery for now. Apparently, it will be produced not in Valencia, but at another Ford plant (for example, in Romania) and will appear no earlier than 2029.

Now let’s move on to Geely. The official press release does not say which two crossovers the Chinese company plans to localize in Valencia, but Reuters, citing Geely Senior Vice President Victor Yang, reports that one of them will be the mid-size Geely EX5, already sold in Europe as the Geely E5 (so far this model is imported from China). The second crossover is still under development, meaning it is a completely new model (likely a technical relative of Ford’s “multifunctional family” crossover). It is expected that both Geely crossovers will be launched into production at the Valencia plant in 2028.

In the longer term, expanded cooperation between Ford and Geely in Europe is possible, meaning new models may appear that will allow the Valencia plant to be fully loaded.

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