Hawtai Automobile
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| Founded | Rongcheng, Shandong, China, 2000 |
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| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
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Key people
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Richard Zhang (Vice President) |
| Products | SUVs, sedans |
| Owner | Zhāng Xiùgēn (张秀根) |
| Website | Hawtai Motor |
| Hawtai | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 华泰 | ||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 華泰 | ||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Huátài |
Hawtai (officially Hawtai Motor Group) is a Chinese automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Beijing, with production facilities in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, and Rongcheng, Shandong. Selling cars and SUVs under the Hawtai brand, from 2002 to 2010 the company had a joint venture or other form of legal cooperation with Hyundai Motors that manufactured Hyundai-brand passenger cars for the mainland China market; Hawtai continues to use some Hyundai technology today.
As of late 2010, its production capacity was reported to be 350,000 units/year. What distinguishes Hawtai from rival private Chinese automakers is its diesel engine production ability. Billing itself as a clean vehicle brand, Hawtai also is a supplier to the Chinese State.
Although correctly romanized as Huátài in pinyin, and previously romanized as Huatai in branding, Hawtai is now the preferred way to spell the name of this Chinese automaker with the Latin alphabet.
Founded in 2000, Hawtai Motor Group is, as of May 2011, owned by Zhang Xiugen, a Chinese entrepreneur. Initially producing an SUV, a 2002 cooperation with Hyundai allowed it to manufacture Hyundai-branded SUVs starting in 2003, which it also started selling under its own name in 2004. Only the engines may have differentiated these Hawtai-branded offerings. The company added sedans to its product line in 2010, and these are probably the first vehicles it both designed and manufactured.
Although it was never consummated, in early May 2011, Hawtai agreed to provide EUR 150 million to Spyker Cars, the then-current owner of Saab, in exchange for Chinese manufacturing rights to the new Saab 9-3 and a 30% ownership of this Swedish vehicle maker. The deal quickly fell through.
Hawtai appears eager to absorb foreign technology, and the company has sought such transfers repeatedly in the process gaining access to diesel engine and vehicle platform technologies. Around the time of the 2009 Chrysler Chapter 11 reorganization, this American automaker discussed the possibility of an asset sale with Hawtai.
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Wikipedia