Electric vehicle startup Bordrin Motors plans to produce its vehicles at Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co., a car subsidiary of state-owned Chinese automaker FAW Group Corp.
Production is to begin at year end by a joint venture to be formed by Bordrin and FAW Xiali, according to a framework agreement the two sides signed this week.
Assembling its EVs at FAW Xiali's plant will allow Bordrin to win a production license from the Chinese government and will enable FAW Xiali to make better use of its production capacity, Bordrin said.
The first vehicle to be assembled at FAW Xiali will be the iV6 electric SUV. The EV is 4,700 mm (185 inches) long, 1,905 mm wide and 1,640 mm tall with a wheelbase of 2,900 mm. It has a range of more than 530 kilometers (329 miles) on a full charge.
Bordrin started taking orders for the iV6 last month at the Shanghai auto show. The vehicle is to go on sale in China in the first quarter of 2020, at a price ranging from 250,000 yuan ($37,147) to 350,000 yuan before government subsidies.
Bordrin was founded in 2016 in Shanghai by former Ford senior engineer Ximing Huang. The company has tech centers in three Chinese cities -- Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing -- and more than 90 employees in Oak Park, Mich., developing driver-assist systems, chassis and body structure.
FAW Xiali, headquartered in the north China port city of Tianjin, operates a small portion of its production capacity because of dismal sales. The company can produce up to 400,000 vehicles a year at full capacity but produced just 21,600 vehicles and delivered 18,800 vehicles in 2018.
