On June 25, BAIC Foton held a grand new product launch ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa, focusing on core strategic models. It officially launched the new Truck Mate to the African market and displayed a lineup of star products that have achieved success in the South African market, including MILER, VIEW, TUNLAND G7, and eVIEW pure electric VAN. The event attracted great attention from many local dealers, core customers, and mainstream media in South Africa, demonstrating BAIC Foton’s firm commitment to deepening the South African market and continuously meeting user needs.
As a pivotal automotive market in the African continent, South Africa has a continuous growing demand for commercial vehicles with high cost-performance and high reliability. Since entering South Africa, BAIC Foton has always adhered to the concept of long-term investment and steadily promoted the layout of the full product line. With excellent product performance and a deeply localized service system, its brand influence and customer trust have been continuously enhanced. The newly released core product, the new Truck Mate, is a strategic model carefully created by BAIC Foton for the multi-scenario transportation needs of South African users, marking the in-depth promotion of its localized operation and industrialization strategy.
Continuously Deepening and Committing to the Future
At the event site, Jiang Yanlei, Vice President of Overseas Business Division, delivered a speech titled BAIC Foton’s Africa & South Africa Strategy. He reaffirmed the company’s firm long-term commitment to South Africa and the entire African market, and emphasized that the current KD production model adopted by the South African factory is a key step in deepening the localization strategy. He stressed that in the future, BAIC Foton will continue to increase investment, focusing on key initiatives such as expanding the product line, increasing localized production scale, optimizing the sales and service network, and strengthening R&D efforts, aiming to comprehensively enhance the value and competitiveness of Foton products in the South African market. BAIC Foton is committed to providing South African users with more needs-oriented and valuable commercial vehicle solutions by further optimizing the product structure and improving the service network.
Release of New Truck Mate
As the protagonist of this launch event, the new Truck Mate micro-truck shone, becoming a key product to meet the efficient and flexible transportation needs of South African users. This model is equipped with an efficient Dongan 1.5-liter engine, providing abundant and reliable power. Its body size is carefully designed to be wider and longer than similar products, offering a super-large cargo capacity of up to 7 cubic meters, fully adapting to the transportation challenges of South African users in multiple scenarios such as urban distribution and commercial circulation.
Truck Mate perfectly inherits the high-quality genes of Foton’s star products, leading the industry in driving smoothness, riding comfort, and overall reliability, providing local customers with a highly competitive and cost-effective choice.
At the launch event, BAIC Foton also displayed its strong product matrix. The highly praised MILER series trucks continue to serve multiple key sectors in South Africa, such as transportation, construction, and agriculture, with their excellent reliability, high efficiency, and strong carrying capacity. With the all-terrain conquering ability and hardcore quality brought by its “super power chain”, the TUNLAND G7 pickup has established a solid market foundation in South Africa and multiple African countries. As an important part of the green logistics solution, the eVIEW pure electric VAN, together with the new Truck Mate micro-truck, provides efficient options for urban distribution. The collective appearance of these star models fully demonstrates the comprehensive strength of Foton products and their deep accumulation in the local market.
BAIC Foton has always adhered to the concept of “growing together with Africa” and regards South Africa as the core fulcrum of its global strategy. Since releasing the African strategy and launching the “Lighthouse Program” in 2024, BAIC Foton has actively promoted technology transfer and localized talent cultivation by deepening local manufacturing, service, finance, and new energy industry chain integration, creating more than a thousand job positions for South Africa and driving the development of upstream and downstream industrial clusters.
BAIC Foton has always adhered to the concept of “growing together with Africa” and regards South Africa as the core fulcrum of its global strategy. Since releasing the African strategy and launching the “Lighthouse Program” in 2024, BAIC Foton has actively promoted technology transfer and localized talent cultivation by deepening local manufacturing, service, finance, and new energy industry chain integration, creating more than a thousand job positions for South Africa and driving the development of upstream and downstream industrial clusters.
