For comparison, Mini sold 162,789 Coopers (three-door, five-door and Convertible) globally in 2025. There’s a price difference, sure, but it’s an eye-opening number. In the UK, Geely plans to sell 100,000 cars per year by 2030, but only a portion of those will be EX2s; last year, it sold 4.1 million vehicles globally.
Michael Yang, Geely Auto UK’s boss, suggests that should demand, conditions and finances align, Geely could use its UK manufacturing base to build vehicles locally. The firm recently mooted it could build cars in Volvo’s US factory to bypass import tariffs, so the idea isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
Building the cars is one thing, but developing them is another. Alongside its global R&D facilities, Geely has built itself a new safety centre and wind tunnel complex at a cost of more than £200 million. Many car companies have wind tunnels, but most don’t have three in the same building.
Geely has one for 155mph gusts, temperature ranges of -40deg C to +60deg C, and sun and rain simulation; one for 124mph gusts and altitude simulation of more than 5200 metres; and the third as a spare.
In the same building you will find climate rooms to bake, soak and freeze cars to see what happens to them. Geely isn’t keeping all of that to itself, though it says the facilities will be ‘shared’ with others.
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