Ford and Geely Form Joint Venture to Build EVs in Valencia, Spain

Ford's statement, carried on the company's newsroom and echoed by the Associated Press, frames the joint venture as a way to combine Ford's European manufacturing base, brand strength, and distribution network with Geely's electric vehicle and software engineering. Geely, which already owns Volvo and Polestar stakes and operates its own fast-growing EV brands in China, brings platform and battery expertise that Ford has said it needs to compete on cost.

CNBC's coverage notes that this is one of the more direct Ford-China industrial tie-ups since Washington and Brussels both tightened scrutiny of Chinese automotive investment. Structuring the venture as Ford-majority, Spain-based manufacturing appears designed to keep the resulting vehicles inside normal European trade and content rules rather than importing finished cars from China.

With Ford at roughly 66 percent and Geely at roughly 34 percent, Ford retains operational and brand control while Geely acts as a technology and engineering partner, a structure that mirrors how some Chinese joint ventures have historically worked in reverse inside China itself.

The timeline is deliberately staged: operations formally begin in the first half of 2027, but the first genuinely new vehicles built under the venture are not expected until 2028. Ford's own account of the announcement, published on its European news site under a piece attributed to product chief Doug Baumbick, frames 2027 as a transition year focused on retooling rather than new-model launches.

Until the new lineup arrives, the Valencia site keeps building the current Ford Kuga, protecting jobs and supplier contracts during the transition. From 2028, Ford has said the plant will add a new multi-energy crossover, meaning a vehicle engineered to be sold with different powertrain options depending on the market, alongside a Bronco-family SUV aimed at giving Ford's rugged SUV nameplate a genuine European presence.

Geely's side of the lineup adds two electric vehicles built on Geely-derived architecture, giving the brand a manufacturing foothold inside the European Union, a point CnEVPost's reporting emphasizes as strategically important given the EU's tariffs on Chinese-built EVs. Building in Spain under a Ford-led venture is one way around that tariff exposure.

Ford has been publicly candid for more than a year that Chinese EV makers have a meaningful cost advantage, driven by vertically integrated battery supply chains and faster development cycles. Rather than trying to close that gap alone, Ford is effectively renting access to Geely's platform work while keeping final assembly, branding, and dealer relationships in-house.

The approach mirrors, in reverse, how Western automakers used joint ventures to access the Chinese market for decades. For shoppers, the near-term effect is limited to Europe, but the venture is worth watching as a template Ford or other automakers could extend elsewhere if EU trade rules and consumer reception prove favorable.

None of the vehicles from this joint venture are confirmed for US leasing programs, and the initial focus is squarely European. Still, US shoppers eyeing a future Ford multi-energy crossover or Bronco-family SUV should watch whether Ford brings a US-market variant once the Valencia line is running, since early joint-venture products often see conservative residual-value assumptions from captive lenders until sales history builds.

If Geely-developed EVs eventually reach US shores through a similar structure, expect the same caution that has applied to other China-linked EVs recently: verify eligibility for any federal or state incentives, and ask lenders directly how they are setting residuals on a brand-new joint-venture nameplate.