English: Place: Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County, Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
Chinese name: 吉利帝豪 (jílì dìháo)
Year of launch: 2008
Today Geely is China's largest independent carmaker and one of the most well-known since it took control over Swedish carmaker Volvo in 2010. With recent launches including the Borui, Boyue, Emgrand GS and Emgrand GL, not to mention the 'premium' Lynk & Co 01 and 03 models, and after buying a controlling stake in Proton and Lotus, Geely shows it is the Chinese carmaker to watch. Geely was founded by Li Shifu in 1986 as a refrigerator maker with money borrowed from family and car production started in 1998. In 2013 Li Shifu was the 63rd richest person in mainland China.
Geely Automobile started in 1998 with copies of the popular Xiali by Tianjin-FAW, a licensed copy of the Daihatsu Charade G100.
A new era started in late 2014 (market launch: April 2015) when Geely launched the Borui, styled by former Volvo-designer Peter Horbury. Since the launch of the Borui, Geely launched three other all-new models: the Boyue SUV, Emgrand GL compact midsize sedan and my personal favourite, the Emgrand GS, a crossover-ish hatchback. Sales of Geely have revived in the last few years and currently it's the second best-selling and one of the fastest growing brands on the Chinese market.
The Geely Emgrand was originally launched under the short-lived subbrand Emgrand as Emgrand EC7. It debuted in late 2008 as FC-2 and FC-3 (sedan and hatchback). It's currently still for sales and received many updates and facelifts in the meantime. It's a hugely successful car, with a record high 223,781 sales in 2016.
Sales figures: carsalesbase.com/china-car-sales-data/geely/geely-ec7/