Zotye did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2017, during a visit by former President Donald Trump to China, Ford and Zotye said that they would invest a combined $756 million to set up a 50-50 joint venture in China to build small electric passenger vehicles.
A year later, the two companies said they had signed a memorandum of understanding for another venture that would make electric vehicles for ride-hailing fleets.
EV makers from home-grown Nio Inc. to U.S. leader Tesla Inc. have been expanding manufacturing capacity in the world’s largest auto market, where the government is heavily promoting greener vehicles as a means of reducing chronic air pollution.
Sales of electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen-powered vehicles in China are forecast to rise to 20 percent of new car sales by 2025 from just 5 percent now, the State Council said in November.
