Stellantis to soon start building Voyah EVs for Dongfeng in one of its French factories

Stellantis and Dongfeng signed a letter of intent and will soon finalize a deal to produce Voyah vehicles at the Rennes plant in France. The two companies will form a joint venture with Stellantis owning 51% of the stake.

Voyah is the luxury sub-brand of Dongfeng in China, and its vehicles are barely known in Europe. According to the latest data, Dongfeng sold a little over 3,000 vehicles in Europe in 2025. But that's about to change as Dongfeng is looking for an aggressive overseas expansion, as the competition in its home Chinese market is squeezing out volumes and profits of all EV makers.

Earlier this month, the two companies signed another deal where Dongfeng will produce new Peugeot and Jeep models for the Chinese market.

This appears to be a part of a broader effort of European carmakers to make use of their underutilized factories across Europe. For instance, Stellantis will build cars jointly with Leapmotor in Spain, and Stellantis again owns 51% of the stake. Volkswagen is said to be exploring such deals with various Chinese carmakers as well.

Stellantis' factory in Rennes is a good example of an underutilized manufacturing infrastructure. The plant opened in 1960 and reached peak capacity around the early 2000s with 400,000 cars annually, but now, it's exclusively producing the Citroen C5 Aircross, which takes just one production line.

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