Geely is a phonetic transliteration of the company's native name 吉利 (pinyin: Jílì), which means "auspicious" or "propitious" in Chinese. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group was already manufacturing its own cars before it acquired the Swedish passenger car maker Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Company in 2010. It completed the acquisition of British taxi maker London EV Company in 2013, and acquired a majority stake in British sports carmaker Lotus in 2017.