Ebro, the commercial brand of EV Motors, will officially reactivate vehicle production this Saturday at the former Nissan plant in the Barcelona Free Trade Zone, now renamed Ebro Factory, with the manufacture of the S700, the group’s first model.
The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, will attend the event; the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu; the Chinese ambassador to Spain, Yao Jing, the Government delegate in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, and the deputy mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Valls.
From the leadership of the automotive groups, the president of EV Motors-Ebro, Rafael Ruiz, will attend; the president of Ebro, Pedro Calef, the president of Chery, Tongyue Yin, and the president of Chery International, Guibin Zhang.
On behalf of social agents, The general secretary of automotive of UGT, Jordi Carmona, will attend; the automotive secretary of UGT in Catalonia, Yolanda Funes, the secretary of the UGT union section in the company, Manel Sanz, and the vice president of Communication of Foment del Treball, Jaume Roure.
Ebro assures that the start of manufacturing “symbolizes the reindustrialization of the plant, the beginning of the recovery of jobs committed to the Reindustrialization Roundtable, in March 2023, and the relaunch of the legendary Spanish brand Ebro”.
On December 16, 2021, Nissan produced its last vehicle in the Free Zone factory after 41 years of operations of the Asian group in the city: the closure of the plant and the Montcada i Reixac and Sant Andreu de la Barca centers affected some 2,500 workers and now Ebro has promised to generate up to 1,250 jobs.
For now, Ebro will begin its operations with the manufacture of the S700 and S800 models, which will each have two versions, one gasoline and the other plug-in hybrid.
Growth prospects
At the same time, during the first part of the year, the automotive group will begin producing the S400 model and at the end of 2025 it wants to have a “reduced size” version of this ready for when it is also expected that Chery has begun to assemble the Omoda 5 EV at the factory.
EV Motors estimates from now on a very significant growth in total sales, which would evolve from the 36 million euros expected at the end of 2024 – depending on the start of vehicle production – to more than 1,918 million euros expected by 2029, when it estimates registering a positive result of 250 million euros.
Such forecasts are essentially based on the production and sale of vehicles, with an expectation of production and sale of around 1,400 vehicles in fiscal year 2024, to exceed 30,000 units sold already in 2025, and in the following years accelerated growth is contemplated that will allow it to exceed 130,000 units sold in 2029.
Takeover of the industrial Hub
EV Motors announced this week the takeover of the company that manages the industrial hub and the old Nissan factory in the Barcelona Free Trade Zone for 3 million euros, which represents a 75% discount compared to the 12 million euros for which, initially, this operation was going to be closed.
This way, the company directed by Rafael Ruiz It has saved about 9 million euros by purchasing from QEV Technologies 43% of the company that it did not control.
Additionally, EV Motors has arranged the purchase of almost 40% of Hub Tech Factory, the industrial hub of the automobile group, in which the Chinese Chery is present after having subscribed a capital increase of 16 million euros.
In this way, EV Motors will control 60% of the hub while the remaining 40% will be in the hands of the Chinese company.
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