Stellantis has announced a memorandum of understanding with Chinese car giant Dongfeng to build its Voyah models in Europe. This will also incorporate the use of Stellantis’ sales and distribution networks, springboarding the Voyah brand into the European car market while helping navigate EU tariffs at the same time. The partnership will be Stellantis-led and European-based, with a 51:49 per cent split in ownership in favour of Stellantis. The cars will be built in Peugeot’s Rennes plant, but no specifics have been announced, either in terms of which Voyah models will be built, or whether they’ll be existing cars already on sale in China or new models with more of a European focus. Commenting on the announcement, Antonio Filosa, Stellantis CEO said: “The plans we are announcing today take our recently strengthened cooperation with Dongfeng to an all-new dimension of an international partnership to the benefit of customers around the world. “With this new chapter in our collaboration, we will give our customers an even greater choice of competitive products and pricing, leveraging the best of Stellantis’ global footprint alongside Dongfeng’s access to China’s advanced new energy vehicles ecosystem.” For context, the Voyah brand in China builds mostly large and high-specification ‘new energy’ SUVs and people carriers, with a split between range-extender hybrid and full BEV options. The smallest Voyah SUV currently on sale is a 4.8m-long BEV with a 558-mile range on the Chinese range cycle. Even taking into account a more pessimistic estimated drop of 20 per cent on the WLTP cycle, this still equates to 446 miles. It also rides on an 800V architecture and comes with ultra-fast charging that’s capable of competing with Europe’s best. Stellantis and Dongfeng already have a close collaboration in China too, because Dongfeng has been the longtime Chinese partner of Peugeot’s Chinese operations. This is not the first joint venture between Stellantis and a Chinese car company either, with Leapmotor already up and running in Europe. However with such high-specification models, Voyah will probably take up a position as a more premium offering than Leapmotor. If you’re interested in a new Stellantis product, make sure you check out our Auto Express Buy a Car service for all the latest deals
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