Shanghai (ZXZC)- Hozon Auto, a Chinese EV marque owned by Zhejiang Hozon New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., is going to kick off on June 27 the construction of its vehicle plant in Yichun, a prefecture-level city of China's Jiangxi Province, the EV maker said via its official WeChat account.

(Photo source: Hozon Auto's WeChat account)

Involving a total investment of RMB5 billion and covering an area of 500,000 square meters, the Yichun base is scheduled to start production at the end of 2020 with a planned capacity of 100,000 vehicles on an annual basis.

Founded in 2014, Hozon Auto saw its first self-built plant in Tongxiang of Zhejiang Province begin production in May 2018, and then was granted with the qualification to produce EVs by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in June of the same year.

The Yichun plant's completion will make Hozon Auto the only EV startup in China that owns two plants with the car building qualification released by both the NDRC and the MIIT.

(Photo source: Hozon Auto's official website)

Besides, the EV maker has already rolled out two production models—the NETA N01 hit the market in last November and the Hozon U all-electric SUV is set to go on sale at the end of this year.

Yichun, boasting the honor of “Asia's lithium capital”, currently has a proven utilizable lithia reserve amounting to around 2.6 million tons, accounting for 50% of China's and 20% of Asia's total volume. Now, the city has gradually formed a comprehensive base to manufacture and process lithium batteries and a cluster gathering lithium battery-related industries.