No borders, no limits: about the global development of ZEEKR

This December, ZEEKR held its first 2024 Global Experience Day. The event was attended by journalists and owners of electric vehicles of this premium brand from Australia, Latin America, the Middle East, the Caucasus, as well as Central, Southeast and East Asia. This division of Geely Holding Group for the production of premium battery electric vehicles appeared in the spring of 2021  And already in April 2023  ZEEKR officially presented the European strategy, which marked the beginning of its global expansion.

Today, the company is present in 40 countries, including Australia, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Sweden. The guests of ZEEKR participated in a test drive of the brand's electric vehicles at various locations Ningbo International Speedway – one of the four international racing tracks of the company located in China. They also visited the headquarters of ZEEKR in Hangzhou city and the company's factory – two hours away in Ningbo city. The population of each of them – more than 10 million people. These sub-provincial cities – there are only 15 of them in China – are located in Zhejiang Province, which is washed by the East China Sea. Flying from Almaty to Hangzhou – the provincial capital – takes about 6 hours.

Skyscraper ZEEKR

Hangzhou – a city of skyscrapers, and one of them belongs to ZEEKR. The company's headquarters is located in a 54-storey building. The journalists reached the last floor in a high-speed elevator in just 15-20  seconds. The skyscraper is fully owned by the brand, but the company does not occupy all floors: office space below the 23  floor is leased by ZEEKR. The company employs more than 5 thousand engineers. The total number of employees – about 20 thousand people.

In the spacious lobby of the ground floor there are four brand models: 001, 7X, 009 and MIX. Here you can also see a variety of merch (official products with symbols – Ed.) of the company. The office design – is as stylish as the ZEEKR models. The company says that in China itself, the brand is primarily chosen for the safety of electric cars, while in other countries – because of stylish design and «smart» technology.

Short on achievements. The motto of this premium brand – «No boundaries, no limits». To date, 400 thousand electric vehicles ZEEKR have been sold worldwide since its inception in March 2021  Thailand ranks second after China in sales, followed by Hong Kong, the company says.

It took the brand just 37  months– to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May  10 , 2024, making it the fastest IPO in history for a new energy vehicle manufacturer (NEV).

In August of this year, ZEEKR announced a significant electric vehicle achievement. The latest lithium Iron phosphate battery (Golden Brick Battery – Ed.) of sedan Zeekr 007 was able to charge from 10% to 80% in just 10.5  minutes. Even at a temperature of -10 degrees Celsius, this process takes no more than 30 minutes. And it will take 15 minutes for the sedan to replenish its charge to throw 500 km.

In November 2024 , the company's 500th showroom was opened in Singapore.

How many models ZEEKR is releasing today

The brand's product line includes six models. The very first was the shooting break Zeekr 001, which was officially released in April 2021 . In November of the same year, the Zeekr 009 luxury minivan entered the market. The third ZEEKR model was the X crossover, which was released in Chengdu in April 2023–. This electric car is equipped with automatic parking, which was demonstrated during a test drive at Ningbo International Speedway.

In October 2023 , a high-speed version of the eekr 001 FR appeared on the market, which accelerates to 120  km per hour in just two seconds – , tested personally during a test drive. And at the end of December last year, the company released a compact executive electric car, the Zeekr 007. The guests of ZEEKR were taught to drift on it during a test drive.

In October 2024 , the Zeekr 7X five-seat crossover appeared on the market, and a month ago– the minivan Zeekr MIX. The company shares that the brand is now targeting the large car segment.

«v» factory

The official distributor of ZEEKR in Kazakhstan is part of the Orbis Auto automotive group. To our market ZEEKR officially released in August 2023 , the first deliveries of the 001 shooting break and the X urban crossover began in December last year. In the same month, the company organized a press tour for Kazakhstani journalists to one of its factories in Ningbo. Read more about the production of electric vehicles at Zeekr Intelligent Factory.

This time, the guests were taken to another «smart» factory of the company – Zeekr Meishan Intelligent Factory, which is also located in the city of Ningbo. This plant is the second largest production base of the company after Zeekr Intelligent Factory. Construction of Zeekr Meishan Factorystarted in September 2017 , and it was officially launched in September 2020. The company notes that this is the world's first factory built using 3D design of a digital twin.

Zeekr Meishan Factory is equipped with five main process workshops where injection molding, stamping, welding, coating and final assembly take place. The plant uses the IoT platform (Internet of Things), to ensure the interconnection of data in real time, to fully integrate information about the supply chain, – in short, to achieve flexible production and transparent management.

The «smart« factory produces 520 electric vehicles per day. Despite the fact that people are still working in some workshops, a person may feel superfluous here. The guests of the factory involuntarily blocked the way to numerous robots that deftly transported various spare parts from one point of the factory to another. And some of the miniature robots even carried whole wagons of carts with spare parts and waited patiently, letting the guests pass. In China, the future of science fiction movies has already arrived, where robots live among people. For example, they moved very organically through the hotels in the cities of Ningbo and Hangzhou, where guests were staying ZEEKR.

Background:Geely Holding Group has been on the Fortune Global 500 list for 13  consecutive years and is ranked 185th as of 2024 . It is the only automobile group from China that ranks in the top 10 in terms of global automobile brand portfolio value. It was founded in 1986. Geely has more than 30 thou. employees engaged in research, development (R&D) and engineering.

ZEEKR electric vehicles on the streets of Hangzhou