Ford and Geely have officially announced a deal that will help them accelerate their business development in Europe. A joint venture will be established, in which Ford's stake will be 66% and Geely Holding's stake will be 34%. The production base of the new joint venture 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.
News that Geely was preparing to set up shop at Ford's Valencia plant emerged from unofficial sources as early as 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; the plant will simply become part of it. The joint venture does not yet have a specific name, and 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. Previously, various popular passenger cars were produced here — the Mondeo family, the Fiesta hatchback, the C-Max compact van, the Galaxy/S-Max minivans — but all of them have already become history without receiving successors. Currently, with a capacity of 500,000 vehicles per year, the plant produces only a single model — the aging third-generation Ford Kuga crossover. Thus, the plant is currently operating at best at a quarter of its capacity.
In May, Ford announced five new passenger car models "with a 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 a 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 a 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 into production in 2028: it will be developed jointly with Geely (effectively on the Geely platform). Officially, this crossover is described as a "multi-functional family" vehicle, but technical details are not yet available.
What the third new Ford crossover is remains a mystery for now. It appears it will not be produced 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 specify 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 (currently 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 "multi-functional family" crossover). It is expected that both Geely crossovers will begin 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 emerge that will allow the Valencia plant to operate at full capacity.
We should 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 the Geely Holding group managed to increase sales by 8.5% to 225,350 vehicles.
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