Geely

	Geely
Country	China
Parent	Independent
Subsidiaries	-
Brands	Geely, Maple, Gleagle, Emgrand, Shanghai Englon
Location	Headquarters: Hangzhou R&D center: Linhai Main assembly plants: Ningbo (Free Cruiser), Shanghai (Maple series), Luqiao (Kingkong), Linhai (Panda), Xiangtan (Vision).
Sales figures	2008: 204,250 units 2007: 181,524 units 2006: 164,495 units 2005: 133,041 units 2004: 96,693 units 2003: 76,274 units 2002: 47,800 units 2008 sales by models: Free Cruiser: 74,274 units Maple: 37,017 units Kingkong: 57,215 units Vision: 23,516 units Haoqing / Merrie / Ulion: 10,794 units Panda: 1,389 units
Introduction	Geely is quite a legend at its home. It was the first privately-owned car maker in China, unlike its state-owned rivals. Born as a small company, it grew quickly by its own effort and went listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Without forming any joint-ventures with foreigners, Geely always emphasizes that it developed its cars and technology by itself, although many of its early cars did immitate foreign cars. Geely has an ambitious expansion plan which will see its model range significantly updated and expanded in the next few years. Apart from the Geely brand, it has created sub-brands Gleagle (dynamic brand), Emgrand (premium brand) and Shanghai Englon (mainly produces London taxi). Besides, Shanghai Maple is a traditional sub-brand of Geely which is used to sell some outdated cars produced in its Shanghai plant.
Brief History	The Geely factory was founded by enterprizer Li Shufu in 1986, initially produced refrigerators, then decoration materials, scooters and eventually entered car production business in 1997. The earliest Geely cars were clones of Daihatsu Charade, licensed by Tianjin Xiali (which had a JV with Daihatsu). In 2003, Geely developed the first car by itself, Beauty Leopard. It was a 2+2 coupe whose odd appearance and poor performance contradicted with its name. However, history will remember that it was the first coupe developed by a Chinese manufacturer. Beauty Leopard (2003) In order to raise its game, Geely hired Korean engineering consultants headed by Daewoo International (not Daewoo motors) to develop its next generation mass production models, Free Cruiser (2005) and King Kong (2006). They gradually replaced the cheap Daihatsu Charade-based models and lifted Geely to an independent car maker in its own right. Meanwhile, through technology transfer and acquisition, Geely got the know-how of building modern VVT engines and automatic transmission. By the late 2000s, it had basically established its own R&D capability. Vision (2007) Nevertheless, the fast progress was associated with criticisms that it copied others - its Vision sedan was clearly a clone to Toyota Corolla, while its GE luxury limousine was even a downsized version of Rolls-Royce Phantom. It would take some years to clean its image.