Foton Motor

Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd. (Foton Motor or Foton) is a Chinese company which designs and manufactures trucks, buses, sport utility vehicles and agricultural machinery. It is headquartered in Changping, Beijing, and is a subsidiary of the BAIC Group.

Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd.
Subsidiary
IndustryAutomotive
Founded28 August 1996 (1996-08-28)
Headquarters
Shayang Rd., Changping, Beijing
,
China
Key people
Xiyong Zhang (Chairman)
Yuequiong Gong (President & General Manager)
ProductsAutomobiles, Commercial Vehicles, Tractors
Number of employees
~40,000
ParentBAIC Group
SubsidiariesBeijing Foton Cummins Engine Co., Ltd. (50%)
Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Co., Ltd. (50%)
Websitefoton-global.com
Foton Motor
Simplified Chinese北汽福田汽车股份有限公司
Traditional Chinese北汽福田汽車股份有限公司
Literal meaningBAIC Foton Motor Co., Ltd.

History

Founded on August 28, 1996, Foton manufactures light and heavy-duty trucks, agricultural tractors, and various other machinery.

In addition to the heavier trucks, Foton also builds a copy of the Toyota HiAce H100, called the "Foton View" or "Foton Alpha".

In August 2002, the company started producing Foton Auman truck.[1]

In March 2006 Foton and Cummins Inc. announced the creation of a 50:50 joint venture company, Beijing Foton Cummins Engine Company (BFCEC), to produce light-duty diesel engines, of 2.8 and 3.8 liter displacement.[2][3]

In October 2009 Foton agreed to form a joint venture to develop and produce vehicle batteries with Pulead Technology Industry Co.[4]

In July 2010 Foton announced the establishment of a European headquarters in Moscow, Russia.[5]

Foton established a sales company in India in April 2011.[6]

In February 2012, Beiqi Foton Motors Co., Ltd. and Daimler AG established a 50-50 joint venture, Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Cventure, at an investment of RMB6.35 billion.[1][7] The joint venture would take over Foton's existing Auman medium- and heavy-duty truck business, including production sites, sales and service network.[8]

Foton will build an assembly plant in Colombia, in order to participate in the growing Latin American market for light commercial vehicles. The company also plans to build a plant in Western Maharashtra, India.[9]

Foton has announced a bus factory in Brazil in the state of Bahia,[10] as part of their globalization plan.[11] Foton has held a press conference in 2015, previewing the Sauvana while announcing news to bring the brand to the United States.[12]

In September 2017 Foton and Piaggio agreed to form a joint venture to develop and produce light commercial vehicle.[13] Based on Foton chassis the new vehicle was sold by Piaggio Commercial Vehicle division in Europe and in all market around the world but not in China. The vehicle was intended as a successor of the Piaggio Porter and production was planned to starts in the mid 2019 in Pontedera (Italy) with all components produced by Foton in China.[14]

In August 2018, Foton Motor announced they would set up a plant in Bangladesh by next year to assemble commercial vehicles in a joint venture with ACI Motors [15]

Operations

Foton is headquartered in Changping District, Beijing. Foton's business units are seen in cities and provinces such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Hebei, Hunan, Hubei, Liaoning, and Guangdong. Its R&D branches are distributed in Japan, Germany, Taiwan and The Philippines. It has assets exceeding 50 billion Yuan and 300,000 employees.[16] Foton, whose brand value exceeds 61.932 billion Yuan in 2005, ranked No.1 in auto industry and No. 11 in the “Top 500 Most Valuable Brands”.

Foton business marquee also consists of a branch in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Och motors LLC which is one of the biggest conglomerate in Mongolia, is the official distributor of Foton in Mongolian market.

Products

Buses
A Foton BJ6123FCEVCH-1 fuel cell bus running in Malianwa Subdistrict, Haidian District, Beijing
A Foton BJ6180C8CTD articulated LNG bus in Beijing

Foton AUV (福田欧V)

  • Foton AUV New Directions (since 2000; Original name:新干线欧V)
  • Foton AUV panoramic Unlimited (since 2003; Original name:全景无限)
  • Foton AUV Pioneer Europe (since 1998; Original name:欧V先锋)Brand name
  • Foton Green Earth (Using city bus in Gangneung, South Korea. It was introduced in 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.)

Trucks
A Foton Auman on display at Speyer Technology Museum

Foton Auman

  • Foton Auman Jones (since 2003, under license of Mercedes-Benz trucks; Original name:欧曼奇兵)
  • Foton Auman Lion (since 2003, under license of Mercedes-Benz trucks; Original name:欧曼雄狮)
  • Foton Auman Kunlun Mountains (since 2003, under license of Mercedes-Benz trucks; Original name:欧曼昆仑)
  • Foton Auman Shenzhou (since 2003, under license of Mercedes-Benz trucks; Original name:欧曼神舟)
  • Foton Auman H4 (since 2011)

Foton Aumark (欧马可)

  • Foton Aumark (since 2005, Original name:欧马可)

Foton Forland (时代汽车)

  • Foton Forland (Since 2006, Original name:时代轻卡)
  • Foton Forland King Kong (since 1998 under license of a South American VW trucks; Original name:时代金刚)
  • Foton Forland Ruiwo (since 1998 under license of a South American VW trucks; Original name:瑞沃)

Foton Ollin (奥铃)

  • Foton Ollin Beyond (since 2005, Original name:奥铃超越)
  • Foton Ollin MRI (since 2005, Original name:奥铃捷运)

Passenger Vehicles

Gratour MPVs (北京伽途)

  • Gratour im6 (智爱MPV)
  • Gratour im8 (智美运动家庭车)
  • Gratour ix5 (1501cc;since 2016) (智行MPV)
  • Gratour ix7 (1507cc;since 2016) (智趣S—MPV)

Foton Sauvana SUV (萨瓦纳) (since 2014; also known as Foton Toplander) [17]

Foton Tunland (拓陆者) pickup

  • Foton Tunland E3
  • Foton Tunland E5
  • Foton Tunland S

Foton Saga (since 2004 under license of DangDong -terrain vehicle; Original name:福田传奇)(Discontinued)

Foton SUP (since 2004 pickup based on the Saga; Original name:萨普)

SUVs sold under the Borgward Group brand.

Light Commercial Vehicles
A Foton View

Foton MP-X (MP-X蒙派克) MPV

  • Foton MP-X Parker Mongolia (since 2005; Original name: MP-X蒙派克)

Foton View (福田风景)

  • Foton View G9 (since 2004 heavily resembling the Toyota HiAce as the high top version)
  • Foton View G7 (Also known as CS2; since 2004 under license of the Toyota HiAce as the low top version)
  • Foton View V5 compact MPV
  • Foton View V3 microvan

Foton Toano (since 2015) business class van/ minibus

Foton Xiangling (Original name:祥菱) light truck series (Discontinued)

Foton Midi (Discontinued)

Foton View Express (produced from 2001 to 2012 resembling the Toyota HiAce, Original name:风景快运)
Foton View Express Passenger (produced from 2000 to 2006 resembling the Toyota HiAce, Original name:风景快客)
Foton View Ireland Act (produced from 1999 to 2005 resembling the Toyota HiAce, Original name:风景爱尔法)

Sales

Foton Motor sold a total of 640,400 vehicles in 2011.[18]

gollark: Because as a hacky interim solution you could probably have semi-manual ones where a human remotely handles the fine manipulation parts.
gollark: Is there actually anything stopping automatic shelf loaders from working now apart from the difficulty of moving the things around?
gollark: There's some law about how generally the cost of technological things goes down by some factor with every doubling of the scale they're produced at.
gollark: Moving real-world objects around in nonideal conditions is a hard problem™.
gollark: It's not trivial just because it's software.

References
  1. "GLOBAL FOTON". www.foton-global.com. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  2. "Cummins to create joint venture with Foton". China Daily. 30 October 2006. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  3. "Cummins to Form Joint Venture in China". Inside Indiana Business. 7 March 2006. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  4. "Foton JV taps new energy". China Daily. 27 October 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  5. "Beiqi Foton opens Europe HQ, Russia unit in Moscow". Gasgoo. 1 July 2010. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  6. "Foton to open Indian sales branch". Gasgoo. 24 April 2011. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  7. "SORL Qualifies as Supplier to Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Co., Ltd. (2 July 2012)". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  8. Topics, Transport (21 February 2012). "Daimler, Foton to Begin China Truck Production in 3Q (21 Feb 2012)". Transport Topics. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  9. India, Press Trust Of (2 May 2011). "China's Foton selects West Maharashtra for Rs 1,676 cr plant". Retrieved 12 April 2018 – via Business Standard.
  10. Line, A TARDE On. "Página principal do Portal A TARDE". uol.com.br. Archived from the original on 8 September 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  11. "Foton Caminhões". www.fotonmotors.com.br. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  12. http://www.foton-global.com/news/arriving-in-north-america-is-fotons-sauvana-suv-with-cummins-technology/
  13. Piaggio and Foton joint venture
  14. Piaggio Accordo con Foton per il nuovo Porter
  15. https://www.thedailystar.net/news/business/chinas-foton-assemble-vehicles-bangladesh-1625551
  16. Foton Motor Group - Basic Information
  17. "2014 Guangzhou Auto Show: Foton Sauvana SUV debuts in China".
  18. "Beiqi Foton's 2011 profits slump 30%". China Daily. 2 March 2012. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
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