GAC Opened a Parts Warehouse Before It Opened 200 Dealerships
Most Chinese brands enter Europe by selling cars first, then figuring out service. GAC Opened a Parts Warehouse Before It Opened 200 Dealerships.
The Rotterdam parts center was inaugurated in September 2025. The French sales company was established in March 2026. The 200-dealer target for France runs to 2030. The parts infrastructure came first.
GAC’s European parts hub commits to delivery within 48 hours to dealers in its network. The Rotterdam center is set up to keep core parts in stock and release them to dealers quickly, cutting the inventory each dealer has to hold. Every dealer carries a minimum “smart stock” of core components.
Rotterdam is the single European parts hub for all GAC brands — AION, GAC, and Hyptec. The center was designed with transparent inventory management and visual logistics dashboards, letting dealers check availability and place orders without going through a Chinese supply chain bottleneck.
GAC’s French after-sales director, Stefan Deschâtres, came from MG and Jaecoo/Omoda — two Chinese brands that have already navigated the European service buildout. His mandate is straightforward: give the dealer network the capacity to repair vehicles quickly and avoid long immobilisation.
First, GAC is building a dealer-only parts pipeline. Rotterdam serves the franchised dealer network. The 48-hour delivery commitment applies to franchised dealers, not to independent distributors. There’s no announcement yet about open parts access for the independent aftermarket.
Second, the model is replicable. GAC’s approach — parts hub first, sales network second, local assembly third — is the sequence that makes a new brand viable in Europe. Other Chinese OEMs will copy it. Chery already partners with DHL Supply Chain in France. Geely runs its European parts centre from Amsterdam.
Does GAC’s dealer-first approach make you more or less likely to invest in serving AION vehicles down the line? And if the independent channel stays locked out, does that change how you view the brand’s long-term service economics?
Related: MG compatible parts · China-made parts index
Sources: GAC Group, 8 September 2025 · L’argus, 22 September 2026 · Reuters, 21 September 2026.
