Lovol tractors was once again at the The National Ploughing Championships, having had a busy summer visiting shows around Ireland with its range of Chinese-built tractors which are being offered at budget-friendly prices.
At the moment, being the tractors brought into Ireland are mostly sub 100hp, and while it would be easy to dismiss them simply as estate, or stockman’s yard tractors, that could well turn out to be a misleading assumption.
Present on the stand at Ploughing 2024 was Tony Liu, Lovol’s sales manager for western Europe who was on hand to help with the sales effort and asses the Irish market.
Liu was more than happy with the response of visitors to the tractors and the fact that he had come along to Ireland, which is hardly the biggest market for the company, suggests that he sees this country as an opportunity that is only beginning to be realised.
New Lovol factory
Yet Liu had brought more than support for sales and marketing team to the event, he also had news of the manufacturer’s latest investment, which is now nearing completion and it is news that should shake western companies from their complacency with regard to tractors from the Orient.
Out in the Shandong Province of China, which lies on the eastern coast, Lovol has built a factory with a production capacity of 100,000 units/year.
That is a huge number, it equates to around a half of all European tractor sales and is actually 10,000 more than the company itself sold in 2022.
Adding to the significance of this development, is the fact these are not glorified garden mowers, but models of 100hp or more, that is to say, western sized farm tractors.
There can be little doubt that Lovol has ambitions, and should any manufacturer over here be scathing about the Chinese company’s ability to engineer larger machines then a quick look at it’s background might be instructive.
Parent company
Lovol is 60% owned by Weichai Holding Group Co, Ltd, which is wholly owned by the Chinese state, an arrangement that that was brought into being in 2021.
It is a vast conglomerate with the subsidiary Weichai Power Ltd, the division to which Lovol belongs, having enjoyed an income of €27.3 billion in 2023 from its own operations.
Weichai Power products include heavy duty truck and marine engines, transmissions (production of both being counted in 100s of 1,000s) and hydraulics, this latter based on 70% ownership of Linde Hydraulics of Germany.
Not only does it make engines in large numbers, but it also produces units that are fully compliant with stage 5 emission standards, and the company claims it has made the world’s most efficient diesel, with a base thermal efficiency of 52.3%.
The scope and degree of expertise available within the parent group is on a scale greater than that, which is available to most western corporations and should it be deployed to its full potential, then we can expect a serious incursion into the European market.
