Chinese carmaker Great Wall’s plans for Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Despite the highly uncertain scenario in the Brazilian automotive industry, there are automakers willing to invest in the country. One such company is Great Wall Motors, China’s largest manufacturer with no state participation, which will start selling its cars in Brazil as of the last quarter of 2022.

The company’s first step in this journey in the Brazilian market began last year, when Great Wall acquired the old Mercedes-Benz plant in Iracemápolis, São Paulo. The German brand had ceased producing vehicles in Brazil in 2020.

In late January, the Chinese giant further detailed its plans for Brazil.

INVESTMENTS IN THE COUNTRY

The Iracemápolis plant has an installed capacity to produce 20,000 vehicles per year. Great Wall announced that the assembly line is being fully adapted to be aligned with the company’s production methods in China. The Brazilian operation is expected to be the company’s largest outside its country of origin.

Initially, R$4 billion (US$751 million) will be invested by 2025. These funds will be used to upgrade the plant, as well as for research and development. By the end of 2025, Great Wall expects to invoice R$30 billion and generate approximately 2,000 direct jobs.

Between 2026 and 2032, the brand’s plan is to inject a further R$6 billion to expand the assembly line’s production capacity to up to 100,000 units per year.

The first cars should be imported from China and will land in Brazil by the end of the year. The first national units should come out of Iracemápolis from 2023. According to Great Wall, the goal is that these first cars made in Brazil will have a 60% nationalization index.

By the end of 2022, the company’s plan is to have dealerships covering all states, what it refers to as “100% coverage of the national territory.” In 18 months, the goal is to have 130 points of sale distributed among 112 cities and some 30 different groups of distributors.

The Iracemápolis plant will also be responsible for supplying other markets in the MERCOSUR region, as well as other countries in 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 the installation of infrastructure and chargers for electric vehicles.

ONLY ELECTRIC AND HYBRID CARS

Great Wall has announced that its cars in Brazil will always be electric, be they hybrid or fully electric. They will all share a new company platform to be introduced in China in the coming months, called LMN. Therefore, it is difficult to say with certainty what these models will be.

It is known that Great Wall Motors works with several brands. Among the main ones are Haval, focused on SUVs, Poer, specialized in pickups, 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 truck segments. Thus, the most likely brands for Brazil would be Haval and Poer, with ORA also a possibility because of its battery-powered cars.

Whatever the brand, the engines of the Brazilian-made models should be the same. In the case of hybrids, they will be the plug-in type, which can have their batteries charged in the socket as well. The combustion engine will be a 1.5 turbo, which will work more like an autonomy extender.

An electric propulsion – or more – powered by batteries with a 45 kWh capacity will drive the vehicle. Thus, power should vary between 230 hp and 430 hp, while torque will range between 41.8 kgf-m and 77.7 kgf-m. All-wheel drive will be an option.

In the case of hybrid cars, Great Wall says that models with the LMN platform will consume between 75 km/l and 208 km/l. The plug-in hybrids will also be able to use fast chargers, which can recover 80% charge in 30 minutes. These vehicles will have a fully electric range of up to 200 km.

As for fully electric cars with LMN architecture made in Brazil, Great Wall says that the models are still under development, but will use batteries with up to 85 kWh 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 be initially imported and later produced locally. Likewise, a second step will be the introduction of fully electric cars.