China-based electric vehicle maker Leapmotor (零跑汽车) and its majority partner Stellantis open a battery assembly workshop in Mallén, Spain on June 23, establishing a localized supply chain node that anchors a broader manufacturing buildout — one that integrates Chinese electric vehicle technology into European production through a joint venture model rather than finished-vehicle imports.
The facility, operated by Leapmotor International — the 51%-Stellantis, 49%-Leapmotor joint venture — assembles battery modules using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells supplied primarily by China-based battery giant CATL (宁德时代). The plant covers approximately 34,000 square meters, including 19,000 square meters of production space, and has an initial annual capacity of roughly 65,000 battery modules, expandable to 100,000 units. The workshop sits directly adjacent to the existing Stellantis-CATL battery production facility in the same industrial zone near Zaragoza, in Spain's northeastern Aragón region.
The workforce reflects the cross-border production model the joint venture is building: a mixed Spanish-Chinese team operates the facility, with Spanish employees having completed specialized training at Leapmotor's operations in China before returning to run the Mallén production line.
The battery workshop is not an isolated investment. It is one node in a manufacturing cluster that Stellantis and Leapmotor are constructing around the Figueruelas production complex. Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa confirmed in March 2026 that the Leapmotor B10 — a 4.52-meter compact electric SUV — begins assembly at Figueruelas in the second half of 2026. A local chassis supplier, Lieder Automotive, a joint venture between China-based component maker Duoli Technology and Spanish Tier 1 supplier Fagor Ederlan, starts producing B10 chassis components in July 2026, explicitly to feed the Figueruelas line.
Three additional Leapmotor models — the B05, A10 (marketed in Europe as the B03X), and A05 — are scheduled to roll off the same Figueruelas line from 2027. In May 2026, Opel confirmed a joint development program for a new C-segment electric SUV with Leapmotor, built at Zaragoza from 2028. Opel CEO Florian Huettl says the partnership enables a development cycle of under two years, a timeline that would be difficult to meet with a fully in-house European EV program.
The B10 illustrates the structural economics underpinning the cluster. The vehicle enters Germany at a starting price of €29,990, with the larger-battery, fully-equipped variant at €33,990 — roughly €7,000 to €10,000 below comparable European-built electric SUVs in the same segment. This price gap is not primarily driven by labor cost differentials, since the vehicle is assembled in Spain by paid European workers. It derives from a purpose-built joint venture architecture that allows Leapmotor and Stellantis to share tooling, amortize development costs across two product lineups, and source battery modules from a co-located supplier that benefits from CATL's upstream scale.
The Mallén cluster operates within a specific policy context. In June 2026, the European Commission finalized anti-subsidy duties on Chinese-made electric vehicles, with rates ranging from 18.8% to 35.3% depending on the manufacturer and level of cooperation with the investigation. These tariffs make direct finished-vehicle imports from China economically challenging for all but the most cost-competitive models. Local battery assembly and vehicle production — using European labor, European suppliers, and a European legal entity — fall outside the scope of those tariffs. The Leapmotor International model, in other words, functions as tariff architecture as much as manufacturing strategy.
The Mallén approach represents a distinct model of Chinese automotive globalization. It differs from BYD's strategy of building company-owned factories in Europe, from Geely's approach of acquiring and retrofitting existing European plants, and from SAIC's MG-brand model of exporting Chinese-built vehicles under a historically British marque. The Leapmotor-Stellantis joint venture integrates a Chinese OEM's electric vehicle platform and a European OEM's manufacturing footprint, supplier relationships, and brand distribution network into a single production entity. Chinese technology provides the vehicle architecture and battery system; European operations provide the plant, the workforce, the local supply chain, and — through Opel — the face of the product to European consumers.
Whether this model scales depends on variables that remain uncertain. B10 production volumes have not been disclosed. The customer response to a Chinese-designed small EV — the B03X, positioned below the B10 — will test whether European consumers accept a Chinese vehicle architecture at the entry-level price point where sensitivity to origin is typically highest. The Opel SUV collaboration, due in 2028, represents the first instance of a European brand's design language and a Chinese brand's electric architecture combining in a single vehicle; its market performance indicates whether the JV template is replicable across other Stellantis brands.
What Mallén does establish, regardless of these open questions, is that a Chinese EV company can enter European production through integration rather than import substitution — and that at least one major European automaker views this structured partnership as a viable path to closing the cost and development-speed gap in electric vehicles.