The ailing SsangYong will most likely be taken over by Edison Motors. This averts a possible demise of the brand for the time being.
Things haven’t been going well for SsangYong for quite some time now. The South Korean brand is heavily indebted and still struggling to gain a foothold in markets it had high hopes for. Here in Europe, among other things, it does not exactly go smoothly, here last year less than 10,000 cars of the brand were sold. Worldwide, the counter last year stood at just over 100,000 cars. Parent company Mahindra & Mahindra was therefore quite busy. Last year it was announced that it wants to get rid of SsangYong.
It seems that SsangYong has now found a company that still sees bread in it: the South Korean Edison Motors. Nikkei Asia reports that Edison Motors intends to acquire SsangYong, reportedly for a cost of more than €220 million. However, Edison Motors is not yet a big name in the car industry, it is a young company that focuses on the production of electrically powered (city) buses for the local market.
Edison Motors reportedly wants to turn SsangYong into an all-electric brand. That could at least make it a bit more interesting here in the Netherlands, since the current models are pretty fucked by the bpm. The first electric SsangYong is in any case already on the way: the SsangYong Korando-e. The brand is also working on two new quite retro-styled SUVs. Now it is hoped for the South Koreans that they can take steps under new ownership and come up with more attractive models.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl