Zeekr Technology Europe AB, formerly China Euro Vehicle Technology AB (CEVT), is the European automotive research and development centre of Zeekr.
The company is located at the Geely Innovation Centre, in a 100,000 square meter building called Uni3 in Lindholmen district of Gothenburg, Sweden.[3][4]
It develops technologies and cars for the Geely owned brands Volvo Cars, Geely, Lynk & Co, Polestar, Lotus, LEVC (London-taxi), Zeekr
Zeekr Technology Europe also does development work for other companies. It developed a platform for Waymo's autonomous taxis.[7]
When Geely acquired Volvo, it used platform technology from its previous owner Ford. Volvo hired Mats Fägerhag, previous development manager at the now-defunct Swedish automaker Saab, to find a development partner to Volvo for their smaller cars.[8]
Geely planned to buy a research and development centre in Europe, but instead, CEVT was founded in 2013 with Mats Fägerhag as CEO, in the same Swedish city as Volvo's headquarters and with many engineers with background from Saab.[9][10]
The first main objective for CEVT was to develop the CMA platform for the smaller Volvo cars, which also was to be used in the Lynk & Co cars.[11] Difference is that for Volvo, CEVT only developed the platform, for Lynk the assignment was to design the entire car including car body and interior and this partnership resulted in the models Lynk & Co 01, 02 and 03.
In 2016 the first Lynk & Co developed by CEVT was presented and the following year Volvo XC40 (using the CMA platform).
CEVT have also developed the modular SEA-platform[12] for electric vehicles, mainly used in the Geely group of car companies and used in cars such as Zeekr 001, Polestar 4, Volvo EX30, Smart #1 and Smart #3.
Besides cars and platform development, CEVT develops common solutions for autonomous driving, automotive electrification, mobility solutions, software development and component development for the Geely group, such as the fully modular automatic 7-speed Dual-Clutch transmission presented in 2019.
September 4, 2023, Giovanni Lanfranchi became the new CEO of CEVT[13] and the company had during the year before this shift in leadership started to describe itself as the "European R&D centre for Zeekr", but also that their design was to be found in the "Geely family, such as Zeekr, Geely Auto, Volvo Cars, Lynk & Co and Lotus".[14] In March 2024, CEVT was renamed Zeekr Technology Europe AB, reflecting its role in Zeekr's development and global expansion.[15]
