Zeekr Technology Europe AB, formerly China Euro Vehicle Technology AB (CEVT), is the European automotive research and development centre of

Zeekr Zeekr Intelligent Technology Holding Limited, trading as Zeekr Group (), is a Chinese Automotive industry, automobile company. It is majority owned by Geely Automobile Holdings, and publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Zeekr was founde ...

. The company is located at the Geely Innovation Centre, in a 100,000 square meter building called Uni3 in Lindholmen district of

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Business

It develops technologies and cars for the

Geely Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd. (ZGH), commonly known as Geely Holding ( ; ), is a Chinese multinational automotive conglomerate headquartered in Hangzhou, China. The company was founded by, and is privately owned by Chinese entrepre ...

owned brands

Volvo Cars Volvo Car AB, trading as Volvo Cars (, styled VOLVO in the company's logo) is a Sweden, Swedish multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles. Volvo is headquartered in Torslanda, Gothenburg. The company manufactures SUVs, station wagons, and ...

Lynk & Co Lynk & Co Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., trading as Lynk & Co is an automotive brand co-owned by Chinese automobile manufacturers Geely Auto and Zeekr. The brand was founded in Gothenburg in 2016 as a three-way joint venture between Volvo Car ...

Polestar Polestar is a Swedish automotive manufacturer that produces electric cars. Principally owned by Li Shufu's PSD Investment, Geely Holding and Volvo Cars, the company is headquartered in Torslanda, outside Gothenburg, Sweden. With an "asset-ligh ...

, Lotus, LEVC (London-taxi),

and

Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

. In 2024, the company had more than a thousand full-time employees and annual revenue of around 4 billion Swedish krona. Zeekr Technology Europe also does development work for other companies. It developed a platform for Waymo's autonomous taxis.

History

When Geely acquired Volvo, it used platform technology from its previous owner Ford. Volvo hired Mats Fägerhag, previous development manager at the now-defunct Swedish automaker

Saab Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab AB, a Swedish aircraft, aerospace and defence company, still known as SAAB, and together with subsidiaries as Saab Group ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab ...

, to find a development partner to Volvo for their smaller cars. Geely planned to buy a research and development centre in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, but instead, CEVT was founded in 2013 with Mats Fägerhag as CEO, in the same Swedish city as Volvo's headquarters and with many engineers with background from Saab. The first main objective for CEVT was to develop the CMA platform for the smaller Volvo cars, which also was to be used in the

cars. Difference is that for Volvo, CEVT only developed the platform, for Lynk the assignment was to design the entire car including car body and interior and this partnership resulted in the models Lynk & Co 01, 02 and 03. In 2016 the first Lynk & Co developed by CEVT was presented and the following year Volvo XC40 (using the CMA platform). CEVT have also developed the modular SEA-platform for electric vehicles, mainly used in the Geely group of car companies and used in cars such as

Zeekr 001 The Zeekr 001 ( zh, 极氪001, p=Jíkè 001, s=极氪 001) is a Battery electric vehicle, battery electric car marketed by Zeekr since 2021 as the first vehicle from the brand. Originally designed as a Lynk & Co vehicle, the model was instead re ...

Polestar 4 The Polestar 4 is a battery electric compact luxury crossover SUV marketed by Polestar, an affiliate of Geely Holding and Volvo Cars, since 2023. The vehicle is manufactured by Geely Holding in a factory in Hangzhou Bay, China. The 4 is the thi ...

, Volvo EX30, Smart #1 and Smart #3. Besides cars and platform development, CEVT develops common solutions for

autonomous driving Vehicular automation is using technology to assist or replace the operator of a vehicle such as a car, truck, aircraft, rocket, military vehicle, or boat. Assisted vehicles are ''semi-autonomous'', whereas vehicles that can travel without a ...

, automotive electrification, mobility solutions,

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

and component development for the Geely group, such as the fully modular automatic 7-speed

Dual-Clutch transmission A dual-clutch transmission (DCT) (sometimes referred to as a twin-clutch transmission) is a type of multi-speed motor vehicle, vehicle Transmission (mechanics), transmission system, that uses two separate clutches for odd and even gear train, ...

presented in 2019. September 4, 2023, Giovanni Lanfranchi became the new CEO of CEVT and the company had during the year before this shift in leadership started to describe itself as the "''European R&D centre for Zeekr''", but also that their design was to be found in the "''Geely family, such as Zeekr, Geely Auto, Volvo Cars, Lynk & Co and Lotus''". In March 2024, CEVT was renamed Zeekr Technology Europe AB, reflecting its role in Zeekr's development and global expansion.

References

External links

Official website
{{Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Geely divisions and subsidiaries Research and development in China Companies based in Gothenburg Swedish companies established in 2013