- Stellantis is looking into bringing Chinese cars to North America.
- The automotive giant’s CEO said there’s an opportunity to assemble Chinese-branded EVs in Mexico and Canada.
- As for the United States, there is currently “no space” for doing something like this.
The automotive juggernaut that goes by the name of Stellantis is looking into manufacturing Chinese-branded cars in North America. The conglomerate, which has over a dozen brands under its wings, holds a majority stake in a joint venture with Leapmotor, enabling access to relatively cheap electric vehicles that could be assembled locally.
Antonio Filosa, Stellantis’ CEO, recently said that the company “for sure” sees opportunities in expanding the manufacturing and sales of Leapmotor-branded cars to Mexico, and potentially Canada. That said, don’t expect to see Leapmotor-branded EVs rolling down American streets anytime soon.
The Leapmotor B10 is a compact electric crossover powered by a 67.1 kWh battery. In Europe, it starts from roughly €30,000 ($35,000).
Photo by: Leapmotor
“I believe that there is space in Mexico. There is, maybe, space in Canada. We’ll see,” Filosa said at the company’s North American headquarters near Detroit, quoted by CNBC. “Now there is no space in the United States. We don’t see that.”
The company knows a thing or two about building partially assembled cars or from knock-down kits. In Europe, Stellantis is using one of its plants in Spain to build Leapmotor cars, and it’s now talking to Dongfeng, another Chinese auto company, to build more expensive Voyah models in France.
In North America, Leapmotor has a small presence in Mexico, but the cars were initially slated to come from China. That may change if one of Stellantis’ plants in the region starts building the vehicles locally.
The same goes for Canada. Leapmotor has not yet established a presence in the United States’ northern neighbor, but the country has opened the gates to Chinese-made EVs, limiting the input to 49,000 imports per year, all of which are subject to a massively reduced tariff rate of 6.1%. However, Stellantis also has a car factory in Brompton, Toronto, which has been sitting idle since the end of 2023, when the previous-generation Dodge Charger and Challenger went out of production. (The new Charger is built at the Windsor Assembly Plant.)
Reopening the Bromton factory would give Stellantis an upper hand in the region, allowing it to build Chinese-branded EVs that are assembled locally, instead of being imported from China. But this is just speculation at this point.
What isn’t speculation, though, is Stellantis’ strong approach to striking deals with other automakers. Besides working closely with Leapmotor, the company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Jaguar Land Rover to explore how the two automakers could collaborate in the United States.