If Donald Trump thought that his proposed 60 per cent tariff on Chinese goods was going to stop products flowing from the People’s Republic, should he be elected in November then may be the move to drive around that threat has already underway by Chinese comanies.
This became obvious this week when Chinese electric truck startup company Windrose, announced its plans to establish its own assembly plant in the USA where it proposes to build its zero emission battery prime movers, as early as next year.
Windrose Technology, founder and CEO, Han Wen said he believed the company could be able to deliver its electric prime movers from a US assembly plant as soon as 2025, directly challenging the often promoted but yet to launch Tesla Semi Truck in its home market.
While it seems as though and clearly is a ploy by Windrose to circumvent Trump’s plan, the Republican Party candidate for the November Presidential Election has repeatedly said he would support investment by offshore companies, including Chinese ones, in the U.SA. Apparently its all part of making the USA great again.
It could also signal a potential return of Chinese electric automotive companies to the world’s largest truck market.
In fact despite the Biden Administration’s moves to reduce carbon emissions and green house gases by offering incentives for zero emission vehicles, President Joe Biden has in contrast, sought to keep Chinese electric vehicles out of the USA by way of a regimen of high tariffs, as well as excluding Chinese components or those linked to China from benefitting from its electric vehicle incentive schemes. This has really shut the Chinese car and truck makers out of the USA thanks to the price advantage they have in many markets being wiped out by the US taxes, and really taking away any incentive for investment by China’s EV industry in America.
Giant Chinese electric car maker, BYD, which is China’s largest manufacturer of electric cars, and which is currently in the midst of a massive worldwide growth phase, has already shelved its plans to set up US factories or to even sell its vehicles in America .
Windrose boss Han Wei said its plan is to locate its new factory in the southern U.S. state of Georgia, however it will be an assembly plant rather than a full manufacturing facility witht he company intending to ship major components to the Georgia facility, where the trucks will be bolted together for sale to potential US buyers.
The company can already boast of an order book of more than 64oo awaiting the delivery of its electric trucks, its U.S. customers accounting for the majority of those orders, which the company will be delivered over the next three years.
Han Wei avoided committing to exactly how much Windrose would invest in the US market, nor did he confirm exactly how many of those 6400 orders were from American buyers, only saying that they made up most of the demand.
“The U.S. market is friendly towards Chinese heavy electric trucks based on the fact that the tariffs on imported trucks are much lower than those on cars, and any of our clients are U.S. firms operating in China, for example, Nike… and we can serve them in their home market” Han Wei said.
Windrose has intimated that its electric prime mover will compete toe to toe with the Tesla Semi and will have a similar price of around $AUD379,000 ($US250,000).
The Chinese designed and developed trucks are reported to have a battery pack capacity of more than 700 kilowatt hours, with a claimed range of more than 670 km on a single charge while apparently fully loaded to 44 tonnes (metric). Like many electric truck start ups from China the range and capacity figures can many times be very different when on the road and working in real world conditions.
As mentioned Tesla is still yet to deliver any mass produce versions of its Semi Trucks, and in fact as at the end of April it had only delivered 36 of the 100 electric trucks it committed to deliver by in 2017, to its cornerstone customer PepsiCo, a factor which has seen other customers to buy from rival truck brands who already have their vehicles on sale.
The ambitious Chinese truck maker has also announced it has plans to assemble its vehicles at a planned plant in Belgium, which is also claimed to be ready and producing trucks by next year.
The Windrose CEO also claims that over time it will start moving more sophisticated manufacturing work to its overseas plants, again to side step the big 38 per cent tariffs the EU has imposed on imported Chinese EVs in a bid to fight what it has declared are unfair Chinese state subsidies.
Han Wei was sanguine about the EU move, saying it was justified on the basis that the EU wants to develop an EV supply chain in Europe, in the same way that China has in recent years.
“Belgium is backing and introducing us to the region just as Shanghai did for Tesla,” said Han.
“They also hope we will be a catalyst in Europe, to teach them how to build an EV and to help them get out of their dark ‘Middle Age’,” Han said provocatively.
Tesla had approval for its Shanghai plant open in 2018 of a Shanghai plant in 2018, with the Chinese government saying that it hoped that dropping a big “catfish” like Tesla, in their tank might motivate smaller Chinese EV maker ‘fish’, to swim faster and compete more vigorously.
Han only founded Windrose in China in 2022 and is set to deliver its first electric trucks to Chinese customers next month in August, with the CEO declaring that the company aims to achieve a global production capacity of more than 10,000 annually by the end of 2027.
Windrose has developed and designed its first truck with a team of just 140 personnel but will outsource the manufacturing to fellow Chinese automotive manufacturer Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group along with Higer Bus, a brand that is well known in Australia. The company sources its batteries from CALB and EVE Energy, but says it is building battery plants in Europe.
