Geely's Monjaro reaches Paris already sold as a Renault and a Volga
Geely's European flagship has already lived three lives under three other badges
Geely brings the Monjaro EM-i to the Paris Motor Show, which opens to the press on 12 October, as its first plug-in hybrid D-segment SUV for Europe. The name is new here, the shape is not: the Monjaro has been on sale in China since 2021, and Korea and Russia already sell it as a Renault and a Volga.
The Monjaro EM-i brings 340 hp and e-AWD to Paris
The Monjaro EM-i pairs a dedicated 1.5-litre hybrid engine with electric motors for a system output of 340 hp, and it is the first Geely built for export with electric all-wheel drive. The 4.8-metre SUV reaches 100 km/h in 5.83 seconds in its quickest form. Geely quotes 130 km of electric range, a DC top-up from 30 to 80 percent in 15 minutes and 1.5 l/100 km, but the range is measured on the old NEDC cycle rather than WLTP. Real plug-in hybrid use has already drifted far from official figures in large German fleet studies.
Renault Grand Koleos and Volga K50 share the original Monjaro body
The Renault Grand Koleos, launched in South Korea in June 2024, is the same CMA-based SUV with a 245 hp 1.5-litre hybrid and a 4,780 mm body. Renault Korea builds it in Busan, one of several projects in a partnership that now reaches Renault's Brazilian range. In Russia, GAZ unveiled the Volga K50 in June: a licensed Monjaro with Geely's 2.0-litre turbo and an Aisin eight-speed gearbox, assembled in the former Volkswagen and Škoda plant in Nizhny Novgorod.
The European Monjaro moves from Volvo's CMA platform to GEA Evo
The original Monjaro rides on CMA, the architecture Geely and Volvo developed together for the XC40, Polestar 2 and Lynk & Co 01. The EM-i version that comes to Europe does not. It keeps the body and the 2,845 mm wheelbase but moves to GEA Evo, Geely's newer architecture for plug-in and electric cars that also carries the Galaxy M7 and M9. So the Volvo family link that makes the Monjaro look familiar to European eyes stops at the sheet metal.
Chinese plug-in hybrids still pay only 10% EU import duty
A plug-in hybrid is the logical way for Geely to enter the European D-SUV class, because Chinese PHEVs still pay only the standard 10 percent EU import duty. Geely's electric cars carry 28.8 percent in total since the EU's anti-subsidy duties took effect in October 2024. Brussels has since turned its attention to Chinese plug-in hybrids, and in September the Commission asked Beijing to rein in hybrid exports voluntarily. That door may not stay this wide.
Geely exported 474,228 cars in the first half of 2026
Geely sold 474,228 cars outside China between January and June 2026, up 158 percent and already more than in all of 2025. In August it raised its export target for the year from 640,000 to 920,000 as sales at home weakened. The Monjaro EM-i started its global rollout in Egypt on 29 August, and Paris will show it next to the E2, the E5 and the Starray EM-i, which together make up Geely's European range.
AutoNext Take
A five-year-old body with the newest drivetrain underneath is the most sensible car Geely could have brought to Paris. The Monjaro shape has already passed tougher tests than most new Chinese arrivals, with Renault's engineers in Korea and a Russian factory signing off on it, and in Europe its plain, almost conservative design will read as reassurance rather than as dated. What it lacks so far is a price and a range figure Europeans can trust.
Geely will have to publish a WLTP electric range before European orders open, and it will come in below the 130 km NEDC claim. If the Monjaro then undercuts the plug-in Kia Sorento and Hyundai Santa Fe while plug-in hybrids are still spared Brussels' extra duties, Geely will have its first European car that sells on merit rather than on curiosity.
