(Yicai Global) July 7 -- The Chinese joint venture of SAIC Motor and General Motors has broken ground on its third manufacturing plant for electric vehicles based on its Ultium EV platform.

The factory, located in the JV’s Dongyue base in Yantai, Shandong province, began construction work on July 5 and is expected to start mass production in the first half of 2025, SAIC-GM said on the same day.

SAIC-GM’s two other Ultium plants are in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area and Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province.

The company will invest CNY70 billion (USD9.7 billion) in electrification and new smart network connection technologies by 2025, it noted, adding that the Dongyue Ultium plant, which is a key element of the investment, is also part of SAIC’s three-year action plan for new energy vehicle development.

The JV has launched three Ultium-based all-electric cars, the Cadillac Lyriq, the Buick Electra E5, and the Buick Electra E4. A second Cadillac-branded EV model based on the platform will be unveiled this year. By 2025, 10 more Ultium all-electric models will be launched.

SAIC-GM delivered 7,503 Buick, Cadillac, and Chevrolet EVs in June, up 105 percent from a year earlier and 217 percent from May, setting a new monthly delivery record for EVs.

China is the world’s largest EV market. But while domestic carmakers have seen their sales rise amid considerable electrification efforts, JVs face greater pressures on slower EV transition. In the first half of this year, domestic models had an almost half share of the Chinese market, a new record high in recent years.

SAIC-GM’s Dongyue base was incorporated in 2003. It produced over six million vehicles and exported 830,000 of them. It also produced 18.2 million sets of engines and gearboxes.

Editors: Xu Wei, Futura Costaglione