Shanghai (ZXZC)- GAC Group entered into a strategic partnership with Guangdong Pearl River Investment Management Group Co., Ltd. (Pearl River Investment) and Guangdong Yuanzhi Technology Group Co.,Ltd. on Jan. 5 for an intelligent vehicle project, the automaker announced via its WeChat account.

Operated by GAC NIO, the project is expected to involve an investment of 3 billion yuan ($464.016 million) at the initial stage and will draw over 10 billion yuan ($1.547 billion) afterwards.

Photo credit: GAC Group

Under the agreement, GAC Group and Yuanzhi Technology will co-work on developing the next-generation intelligent vehicles in virtue of GAC Group's resources of complete vehicle R&D, supply chain and smart manufacturing, and the latter’s innovation edges in AI, vehicle-infrastructure cooperative system, IoT (Internet of Things), intelligent driving, smart connectivity, intelligent manufacturing and big data.

According to the development planning, the vehicles under the project will be made in the form of contract manufacturing before independent R&D and manufacturing systems are founded. All parties will strive to deliver 250,000 vehicles, output a production value topping 40 billion yuan ($6.187 billion) in 2025 and create nearly 4,000 jobs.

Moreover, all investors will endow the project with more resources from such 5G-based cutting-edge fields as big data application, cloud computing and autonomous driving, aiming to help Guangzhou build a world-class industrial cluster for ICVs (intelligent-connected vehicles) and new energy vehicles.

On Jan. 5, GAC Group agreed to let GAC NIO introduce new strategic investors and enlarge shares by increasing registered capital. According to GAC Group, a total of 2.405 billion yuan ($372 million) will be instilled into GAC NIO, of which 482 million yuan ($74.552 million) will be offered by GAC Aion. Upon completion of the capital increase, GAC Group and GAC Aion will together hold 25% of equity stake in GAC NIO.