Chinese invasion: Windrose to build its electric semi truck in US

In what the company’s CEO is calling “a direct challenge” to the Tesla Semi, Chinese heavy truck manufacturer Windrose recently announced plans to build a new assembly plant in the US in a bid to sidestep heavy tariffs on electric vehicles made in China.

Windrose brought one of its all-electric Class 8 trucks to the ACT Expo in Las Vegas earlier this year, giving journalists and fleet buyers a chance to see the truck first hand — and, despite being a preproduction truck, Windrose impressed with what appeared to be a slick UI, well-finished interior, and solid construction.

That slick UI is more important in the Windrose than it might be in other HDEVs, too, because Windrose is hoping to use externally-mounted cameras feeding vertically oriented tablets in lieu of traditional side mirrors. If it gets DOT approval, those cameras will help the Windrose BEV trucks deliver a drag coefficient of 0.2755 — which, the company claims, is the lowest of any available heavy-duty truck.

Windrose interior and camera “mirrors”

“The US market is friendly towards Chinese heavy electric trucks based on the fact that the tariffs on imported trucks are much lower than those on cars,” says Windrose chief executive, Han Wen. “Many of our clients are US firms, for example, Nike … and we can serve them in their home market.”

The company’s trucks feature a 729 kWh battery that can add 400 km (248 miles) of range in just over 30 min using Borg Warner’s newest 960 kW fast chargers. That’s possible due to a pair of liquid-cooled charging terminals that can support dual-gun single-vehicle high-power super-fast charging, with a single-gun maximum output of 600A.

Windrose says US companies account for “the majority” of its approx. 6,500 standing orders. Those orders would ideally be filled by the company’s planned US assembly plant in Georgia, which will piece together chassis and other vehicle parts manufactured in China. The company also plans to expand its manufacturing operations in the EU, as well, with another factory planned in an as-yet-unnamed EU nation to sidestep their tariffs on Chinese trucks.

Electrek’s Take

It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re talking about the low-end or the high-end of the EV market, the Chinese are there with solid products that seem poised to seriously challenge Western automakers in their home markets. Whether or not the ridiculous central seating position works better in China than it’s bound to in the US, however, remains to be seen.