The agreement for the reindustrialization of the land of the old Nissan plant in the Zona Franca of Barcelona seems imminent. The Chinese automobile group Chery and EV Motors, the promoter of the D-Hub, are studying to present the investment in an official ceremony on Friday, April 19 in Barcelona. In this way, a long process of almost four years will be put to an end to find an investor interested in giving a second life to these historic factory facilities.
The event is expected to take place at the D-Hub, in the space where Chery itself will be installed, according to Omoda sources, the Chery brand whose vehicles could dock in Barcelona. It is foreseeable that the highest authorities of the Spanish Government, the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council will attend. However, none of the three institutions or EV Motors confirmed the act.
In recent days, managers of the Spanish company and representatives of the Generalitat have gone to Wuhu (China) to try to resolve the last fringes of the agreement with the management of Chery. Sources from EV Motors indicated yesterday that the negotiations are very well underway, but they stressed that nothing has yet been signed.
In fact, the Minister of Business and Employment, Roger Torrent, went there in person yesterday to tie up the agreement. In an attention to the media before leaving for China, the senior official of the Generalitat was confident that the agreement could materialize in the coming days, although he asked to be “cautious”. The councilor emphasized that Chery is a key piece to give a new industrial impetus to the former Nissan facilities.
The agreement with the Chinese group guarantees enough workload to absorb the nearly 600 ex-Nissan workers pending relocation and who have training contracts until October. On previous occasions, Chery has indicated that, when the plant reaches full capacity, the workforce will increase to 1,000 jobs.
The Chinese company has not specified what plans it has for the new facility, although some media have speculated that it could manufacture both electric and combustion vehicles. Among which the electric Omoda 5 stands out.
The reindustrialization of the old Nissan plant has not been an easy road. In fact, the process has been about to get bogged down a few times.
After the announcement in the spring of 2020 of the cessation of Nissan’s activity, the various parties involved (Spanish Government, Generalitat, Consorci de la Zona Franca, Nissan and the unions) launched a table for reindustrialization. The process was less successful than initially expected, although it ended up culminating in early 2023. On the one hand, Goodman assumed the role of owner, while the reindustrialization project was awarded to QEV Technologies and Btech Group (Barcelona Technical Center), subsidiary of EV Motors.
Earlier this year there was the latest misstep in this whole process, when QEV Technologies exited the equation after transferring its 40% stake in D-Hub to Btech, which has completed the process alone
