Dongfeng and Taiwan’s Yulong ink deal to put Luxgen in China

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Earlier today in Beijing, the Chairman of Dongfeng Auto Group Mr. Xu Ping He and Yulong Auto’s Mr. Yan Kai Tai announced the creation of a new partnership that will see Yulong’s Luxgen motors being produced in China. In front of 300 selected guests and VIP’s, Mr. Xu and Mr. Yan announced that the Luxgen brand, originally a Taiwanese branded vehicles that was self developed by Yulong Motor, will be produced in Hangzhou.

Dongfeng Auto are expected to invest 775 million RMB into the partnership, which will see it being a fifty-fifty joint venture run the by the pair. The first Luxgen plant will be based in Hangzhou’s Xiaoshan Industry park and has a wide mandate to produce passenger vehicles including MPV’s, SUV’s, sedans and also pure electric vehicles. Dongfeng will be assisting Yulong with the development of the Luxgen brand for the Chinese market, although it is unclear how far this will go. The first Luxgen model is expected to be produced in July but a launch will happen towards the end of 2011 and will be sold under the Luxgen moniker, although it will be called Na Zhi Zhen in Chinese.

The Taiwanese-Chinese partnership is expected to promote further reunification between the two, which have been separated since the Nationalist government of China fled the mainland in 1949 and set up base camp in Taiwan, however in recent years the Taiwanese and Chinese government have relaxed their stance towards one another. The mainland government gave its blessing to the partnership earlier this year on July 29th, and have since revealed that total investment in the project is expected to reach 3.4 billion RMB.

Luxgen is a relatively new brand and was developed by Taiwan’s Yulong Motor for use within Taiwan and China. Luxgen currently has two models in its line up, both of which have been spotted out testing in the Chinese mainland before now. Luxgen’s MPV and SUV are powered by a 2.2 inline 4 engine built by the Chunghwa Engine Corp and has a turbo supplied by Garret, the engine is good for 173bhp of power (270Nm).