Geely Is Coming to Pakistan: What the Bestway Deal Really Means for Your Next Car

If you have been putting off buying a car because petrol prices keep climbing and every EV story turns out to be a rumor, this one is different. On July 8, 2026, Bestway Group confirmed a formal partnership with Geely Auto Group to bring Geely cars to Pakistan. Not a teaser. Not a "we are in talks." A signed deal, announced from Geely's own headquarters in Hangzhou.

For a country where new car prices have doubled in a few years and fuel costs eat a huge chunk of the monthly budget, this matters. Let's look at what is actually confirmed, what is still up in the air, and whether this is worth waiting for.

Who Is Bringing Geely Here, and Why It Isn't Starting From Zero

Bestway Group is not a random new player trying its luck in the auto business. It already runs Bestway Cement, Pakistan's largest cement maker, and holds a stake in United Bank Limited, one of the country's biggest private banks. It also owns Bestway Wholesale and Well Pharmacy in the UK. This is a group with deep pockets and a long track record of staying in Pakistan for the long haul, not chasing a quick launch and disappearing.

Here is the part that matters for you as a buyer: Bestway already owns Al-Haj Automotive. That means there is an existing dealership network, service centers, and an assembly plant in Karachi already up and running before Geely even showed up. Most new entrants in Pakistan's auto market have to build all of this from scratch, which usually means years of slow rollout and patchy after-sales support. Geely gets to skip that part.

Under the agreement, Bestway Automotive (Private) Limited becomes the sole authorized distributor of Geely vehicles in the country.

The Three Models Bestway Confirmed

Earlier reports guessed at two electric models. The official announcement names three:

Geely Galaxy EX5 a compact electric SUV. Geely Galaxy EX2 a compact electric hatchback. Geely Starray EM-i a plug-in hybrid SUV.

That third name is the update worth paying attention to. Some earlier coverage assumed the Starray was only a maybe. Bestway's own press release lists it directly alongside the EX5 and EX2 as part of the initial lineup for Pakistan. Given Pakistan's patchy charging infrastructure outside major cities, a hybrid option that runs on both electricity and petrol could end up being the more practical pick for a lot of buyers, especially anyone planning trips between cities.

When Can You Actually Buy One

The target is Q3 2026, which means sometime between July and September this year. The first cars will land as Completely Built Units, meaning they are made in China and shipped over as finished vehicles rather than assembled here. That usually pushes the price up because of import duties, but it also means the earliest buyers get cars built on Geely's main production lines, with no local assembly kinks to work out.

Bestway has been upfront that the exact date and pricing are not locked in yet. When PakWheels asked directly, the company said both details will be shared once finalized. So treat any number floating around online right now as a guess, not a fact.

What happens after the CBU phase is where this stops being just another car launch and starts looking like an actual industrial shift. Bestway plans to move to local assembly at its existing plant in Karachi. That plant already exists because of the Al-Haj acquisition, so this isn't a "someday, maybe" promise. It is a matter of retooling and localizing rather than building an entire factory from the ground up.

Local assembly usually means three things for buyers down the line: lower prices as import duties drop out of the equation, faster delivery times, and easier access to spare parts. None of that happens overnight, but the groundwork is already there.

What You're Actually Getting: A Real Look at the Cars

Let's get past the marketing language and look at what these cars can actually do, based on how they perform in markets where they're already on sale.

Galaxy EX5

This is Geely's global electric SUV, already sold in Europe, Australia, the UK, Southeast Asia, and Latin America under various names. It runs a single motor producing 218 horsepower, hits 100 km/h in 6.9 seconds, and tops out at 175 km/h. That is enough power for a family SUV without being flashy about it.

Battery options range from around 49.5 kWh up to a newer 68.39 kWh pack introduced in some markets earlier this year. On the WLTP testing standard, range runs up to about 430 km, with real-world driving typically landing closer to 300–330 km depending on how you drive and the weather. Fast charging takes the battery from 10-80% in roughly 20 to 28 minutes, depending on the charger.

The EX5 uses Geely's own LFP battery technology, which the company calls the Short Blade Battery. LFP chemistry tends to handle heat better than the alternatives, which is worth noting given how hot Pakistani summers get. It also earned a five-star safety rating in independent crash testing in markets like Australia.

Galaxy EX2

If the EX5 is for families, the EX2 is built for the city commute. It is smaller, cheaper to build, and in China it outsold every other car in the country in 2025, including the Tesla Model Y. That is not a small claim. It genuinely became the best-selling passenger vehicle of any kind in its home market last year.

Power output is more modest at 85 kW (about 116 horsepower), with a 0-100 km/h time of 11.5 seconds. This isn't a car built for speed. It's built for cheap, dependable trips around town. The base battery is 39.4 kWh, giving a range of around 410 km on the Chinese CLTC test cycle. A newer 47.14 kWh version pushes that to about 480 km and can recharge from 30-80% in 19 minutes.

Inside, the EX2 comes with a 14.6-inch touchscreen on higher trims and, on the top variant, a semi-autonomous driving assist system using radar and cameras. For a car aimed at first-time buyers and young drivers, that is a lot of tech for the segment.

Starray EM-i

This is the one that might surprise skeptics. The Starray EM-i pairs a 1.5-liter petrol engine with an electric motor and battery, letting it run on pure electric power, pure engine power, or both together, switching automatically based on driving conditions.

In December 2025, Geely put this exact model through a real-world test: a 1,056 km drive down Australia's coast from Sydney to Melbourne, through hills, traffic, and summer heat, with independent Guinness World Records adjudicators watching. The car finished the whole run using just 3.83 liters of fuel per 100 km, beating even Geely's own official rating for the car. That is the kind of number that normally only shows up in a lab test, not on an actual highway with actual traffic.

For Pakistan, where fuel costs make up a huge share of monthly transport spending, a car that runs mostly on electricity for daily errands but switches to petrol without any range anxiety on a long trip to another city solves a real problem. You are not stuck hunting for a charging station in a small town along the GT Road.

What Geely Actually Brings to the Table

• Geely runs one of the largest privately-owned auto R&D setups in China, with plants and design studios spread across Hangzhou, Ningbo, Gothenburg, Coventry, and Frankfurt.

• It owns or holds stakes in Volvo, Lotus, Aston Martin, Smart, Zeekr, and Lynk & Co, so the engineering that goes into a budget hatchback often traces back to tech shared with premium European brands.

• The EX2, sold in China as the Geome Xingyuan, outsold every other car in the country in 2025, including the Tesla Model Y. That's proof the company can build something people actually want to buy, not just something that looks good on paper.

• The Starray EM-i's Guinness World Record run wasn't a lab test. It was a real 1,056 km drive through hills, heat, and traffic, supervised by independent adjudicators, and it beat Geely's own official fuel figures.

• Geely already builds right-hand-drive versions of the EX5 and EX2 for markets like the UK, Thailand, and Australia, so adapting these cars for Pakistan's roads isn't new territory for them.

What Bestway Actually Brings to the Table

• Bestway already owns Al-Haj Automotive, which means a dealership network, service centers, and an assembly plant in Karachi exist before a single Geely car has been sold here.

• The group runs Bestway Cement, Pakistan's largest cement manufacturer, and holds a major stake in United Bank Limited, one of the country's biggest private banks, showing it has the financial staying power for a long rollout, not just a quick launch.

• Bestway is Pakistan's largest expatriate investor group, with a three-decade track record of building and managing businesses here rather than testing the water and leaving.

• Its UK holdings, Bestway Wholesale and Well Pharmacy, are among the largest in their sectors, which shows the group can run large, service-heavy operations at scale, a skill that matters just as much as the car-selling part.

The Honest Concerns Nobody Should Skip

Follow are the key concerns for every Pakistani in this regard

None of this means smooth sailing.

A few real issues are worth thinking through before anyone gets too excited.

Pricing is still unknown. Bestway has confirmed this twice now, to two separate outlets. Until an actual number is announced, any price you see quoted online is speculation. CBU imports usually carry higher duties than locally made cars, so the early units may cost more than the eventual, locally assembled versions.

Charging remains patchy outside big cities.

Pakistan's public charging network is still growing and concentrated mostly in Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. This is exactly why the Starray EM-i's hybrid setup might end up being the smarter buy for anyone who regularly drives between cities, at least until charging infrastructure catches up.

After-sales support has to actually show up.

Bestway has the Al-Haj network to lean on, which is a real advantage over brands starting from nothing. But expanding proper service coverage into smaller towns takes time, and Pakistani buyers have been burned before by brands that sold cars faster than they built service networks. This is the detail that will decide whether Geely becomes a long-term player here or just another name that struggled after year one.

Grid capacity is a fair question too.

Pakistan's power grid already deals with demand issues in peak summer months. More electric vehicles charging at home adds load, though EV charging is usually done overnight when demand is lower, which softens the impact. Anyone planning to run an EV as a daily driver should think about a home charging setup, and possibly solar, rather than depending purely on the public grid.

Why This Deal Is Bigger Than Just Two or Three New Cars

Step back from the individual models for a second. What is actually happening here is a full industrial play: import first, prove the market wants it, then localize production, build supply chains, train workers, and grow the dealer footprint over time. Bestway itself has said the partnership is meant to evolve into "a long-term and broad-based collaboration" involving more localization and job creation, not a one-time product drop.

This mirrors how Chinese auto brands have entered other new markets over the past few years, moving from imports to local assembly once demand is proven. If it plays out the way Bestway describes, expect the lineup to widen well past these first three models by 2027 or 2028, and expect the Karachi plant to start producing at least some of them locally rather than shipping every unit from China.

For a market that has watched several EV promises come and go without much follow-through, the fact that an established, deep-pocketed local group with an existing plant and dealer network is behind this one is the detail that separates it from past announcements.

What To Actually Do With This Information Right Now

If you're in the market for a new car this year, here's the realistic move: don't rush a decision based on hype, but don't ignore this either. Watch for Bestway's official pricing and launch date announcement, expected sometime around Q3 2026. Compare it honestly against what BYD and other Chinese EV brands are already offering here, since the EX5 and EX2 are built to go head-to-head with cars like the BYD Atto 3 and BYD Seagull in their respective segments.

If your driving is mostly city commuting, the EX2 is worth a serious look once pricing lands. If you need space for a family and can charge at home, the EX5 fits that gap. And if you're not ready to trust charging infrastructure yet but want lower fuel bills, the Starray EM-i is the one to keep an eye on.

Nobody can tell you the exact price today, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. But the deal itself, the plant, the network, and the timeline are real, confirmed directly by both companies. That is more certainty than Pakistan's EV market has had in a long while.For more updates, visit DrivePK.com