Geely invests £120 million in taxi manufacturer LEVC
According to company documents, Geely paid the money in two instalments. Last October, the Chinese automotive group pumped £70 million into its Coventry-based subsidiary and a further £50 million in May. The money will be used for the production of a new electric car platform. The SOA (Space Oriented Architecture) platform developed in research and development centres in the UK, Europe and China forms the basis for the new L380 electric van from LEVC, which has been available in China since the end of June and will also be sold in the UK in the future.
Geely’s involvement in the UK taxi industry began in 2006 when the company entered into a partnership with the London Taxi Company, LEVC’s predecessor. In 2013, Geely, which also owns Lotos and Volvo, rescued the London Taxi Company from insolvency. In 2015, Geely announced the construction of a new factory near Coventry and planned to create 1,000 jobs there. The company was then renamed London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) in 2017. With the new name, Geely wanted to make it clear that the British company was no longer just producing taxis, but wanted to focus on electric cars in various formats. The new L380 electric van is the first result of this reorientation.
Originally, LEVC had wanted to develop further vehicles based on the platform of the TX plug-in hybrid taxi presented in 2017. However, in 2019, LEVC scrapped plans to use its platform as the basis for new models and went back to the drawing board to develop the new SOA platform, which is now the basis for the L380.
The British Times estimates that Geely had already invested an estimated £500 million in the company before the recent cash injections. French bank Natixis invested a total of £80 million in early 2023 to bolster LEVC’s balance sheet and acquired a 6.45 per cent stake in return.
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