Shanghai (ZXZC)- At this year's Chengdu Motor Show, GAC Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobile (FCA) Group, two parent companies of the joint venture GAC FCA, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to step up their strategic cooperation in China and explore new collaboration opportunities.

In accordance with the MoU, both parties will proactively explore strategic collaboration based on each other's advantageous resources, make joint efforts to optimize GAC FAC's businesses and reinforce Jeep's brand strengths. As part of endeavors, they will speed up the introduction of new vehicle models and EV products. 

The 10-year-old joint venture currently has eight models, of which only 5 are locally produced in China. The issue of narrow product coverage looks more prominent when the country's PV retail sales plunged 22.5% year on year for the first half of the year.

According to GAC Group's sales results, GAC FCA sold 17,577 new vehicles in the Jan.-Jun. period, facing a 50.97% slump compared to the year-ago period. In terms of the growth rate, it was significantly outperformed by GAC Honda and GAC Toyota, but still a bit outpaced GAC Mitsubishi that suffers a severer lack of products. To revive sales, GAC FCA put the Jeep Cherokee Classic & Sport version onto the market in early July. The new model displays a striking resemblance to the existing model.

The signing of the MoU is expected to help GAC FCA move faster on electrification. The joint venture has not launched any BEV model yet. Jeep brand said in 2018 it planned to have a lineup composed of 10 PHEV models and 4 BEV model by 2022 (photo source: GAC Group's WeChat account).