Joint venture between Ford, Chinese firm to start production in 2019

HANGZHOU, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A joint venture between U.S. auto maker Ford and its Chinese counterpart Zotye is expected to manufacture full electric vehicles by September 2019.

The joint venture, with an investment of 5 billion yuan (755 million U.S. dollars), will be based in the Jinhua development zone in east China's Zhejiang Province, according to an agreement signed on Thursday between the firm and the zone.

Ford and Zotye will each hold half of the joint venture's stake. The new facility is expected to produce 100,000 vehicles a year.

Peter Fleet, Ford's Asia-Pacific president, said electric cars will take a big share of China's auto market, and the joint venture hopes to become a leader in the field.

Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that 517,000 new energy vehicles, including full electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, were manufactured and 490,000 were sold between January and October, both up over 45 percent year-on-year.

In October alone, 77,000 full electric vehicles were manufactured and an equal number of them were sold, up more than 76 percent and 95 percent respectively. Enditem