EV Motors (Ebro) goes public and promises to invest 500 million and save jobs at the former Nissan plant.
Almost six months ago, the Catalan group EV Motors, the parent company of the Ebro brand, entered into an alliance with the Chinese giant Chery to restore the old Nissan plant in the Barcelona free trade zone. This Monday, EV Motors went public on the BME Growth market to finance this plant and the production of electric vehicles.
“The IPO will help us accelerate growth in order to reindustrialize the plant and develop the brand,” justified EV Motors President Rafael Ruiz before the call. That is, he wants to strengthen sales and production capacity. The original idea was to use the Barcelona plant from the start to assemble Chery cars under the Omoda brand, but that production will not begin until the end of next year, Ruiz confirmed.
He also noted that Chery is involved in two “joint ventures”: one joint venture associated with the plant and the other with production; and that the deal between the two companies was completed last Friday.
Production under the Ebro brand will begin this year. The commitment, he said, is to invest around 300 million euros in the coming years and retain the 500 employees coming from Nissan.
“In October there was a change in the contract,” he noted. “The agreement with the workers has been fulfilled. The shift will begin in November or December. In April the second; and the third in the middle of next year.” “By the end of 2025, 100% of workers will be active and more will likely be hired,” he said.
Next year the company plans to produce 30,000 units and sell them through its own network of dealers, of which there are more than thirty. When the agreement was announced in April, Chery and Ebro set a goal of reaching 150,000 vehicles by 2029.
What the company doesn’t see as bad are the tariffs on imports of Chinese cars that the European Union has imposed to try to stop what it sees as unfair price competition. “Tariffs do not affect us negatively, we have a plant in Europe, and they do not have any negative impact,” he assured.