Visitors to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July had what appeared to be yet another new Chinese car manufacturer to check out.
However, Chery arrives on the UK market next month, knowing exactly what to expect because two of the group’s subsidiary brands have been on offer to British buyers for the past year. Omoda and Jaecoo launched as sister brands in 2024 and have already established a 75-strong dealer network, selling the two brands together.
The arrival of cars wearing a Chery badge is just the centrepiece of a five-brand push by the overall Chery Automobile group. While not well known in the UK, Chery has been China’s largest vehicle exporter for decades.
Chery’s highly effective approach has been to focus particular brands on their likely rivals. Omoda, for example, tackles European brands such as Cupra, while Jaecoo targets Land Rover’s upmarket Range Rover models. As well as parent brand Chery, the group is exploring the potential to bring another two new badges to the UK. Lepas is a value-for-money proposition, while iCaur (sold in China as iCar) is an off-road specialist brand. Either or both of these new names could be on UK sale next year.
But that could still all change. Chery Group’s plans have been so fluid that several observers have been wrong-footed trying to second-guess them over the last year. Several predictions had Lepas being the third brand launch in the UK after Omoda and Jaecoo, other rumours suggest that iCaur might not be coming after all and still more sugest that another brand called Jetour is also under consideration.
Chery already has an agreement for one European plant, to build Omoda models in Spain, and there are rumours (or possibly wishful thinking) that the company is considering building a production plant in the UK. This would likely be an assembly centre putting together cars from parts imported from China, much as MG previously did in Birmingham.
So who or what is Chery?
Chery is young in terms of global automotive powerhouses, but one of the oldest in the Chinese car industry. Today, it’s rated the fourth of China’s ‘big four’ automotive groups in domestic Chinese sales, although it outsells all other Chinese car companies in export sales. It has always been state-owned.
The group was first formed in 1997 by a group of officials in the city of Wuhu, in the Anhui province of China. Chery’s first car was the Fengyun in 1999, which was based on the SEAT Toledo. It sold around 50,000 in Chery’s local Anhui province, but the brand was not permitted to sell cars in the rest of China until 2003 – a distinctive feature of China’s highly regulated automotive industry.
The company had a controversial first decade. It was accused by American giant General Motors of copying one of its cars, the Daewoo Matiz, with the Chery QQ in 2003. That was settled out of court, but Volkswagen then threatened a lawsuit over claims that Chery was using Volkswagen’s Chinese suppliers to effectively copy the Volkswagen Jetta (a saloon version of the Golf, as saloons have long been more popular than hatchbacks in China).
Meanwhile, Chery’s early attempts to sell cars in America through a deal with US company Visionary Vehicles collapsed and the US firm won a lawsuit against Chery for breach of contract.
Things eventually began to turn as Chery continued to invest in its own engineering capabilities. In 2007, the Chery A3 – no relation to the Audi A3 – was launched, styled by the famed Italian studio Pininfarina (better known for 50 years of being Ferrari’s preferred design house), and it proved a major success. The A3 also became the first Chinese car to gain a five-star safety rating from the country’s own version of Euro NCAP, By 2008, Chery was making its own-design engines and even selling them to Fiat, and by 2009 it was building more than half a million cars annually.
In that year, Chery became one of the earliest Chinese automotive manufacturers to begin making electric cars, while the company’s next move was to pivot away from its budget image and launch multiple car brands under the Chery group. Ambitions quickly exceeded reality, however, with some 100 different models planned and the company eventually scaled its plans back to a more manageable level.
In 2012, Chery signed a deal with Jaguar Land Rover after several failed attempts to set up partnerships with other international manufacturers. This alliance has since seen the group making Range Rovers for the Chinese market, and even a version of the classic Mini Moke from the 1960s. A couple of years ago, JLR licensed the Freelander nameplate to Chery for a new range of EVs – these will be sold initially in China but there are ambitions to export them globally.
Chery revived its multiple brand strategy, the first of its new badges being Cowin and an upmarket badge called Exeed – plans to launch the latter in America have so far not been realised. Despite this, the company’s global export ambitions are undimmed, launching its ‘Double 50’ strategic plan in 2021 to target half a million annual exports. This plan succeeded beyond the management’s wildest dreams – by the end of 2023, Chery had exported more than 900,000 vehicles.
Those exports included the first moves into Europe – two new badges, Omoda and Jaecoo were unveiled as specific export brands in early 2023 and a year later both arrived in the UK. With yet more new names, Lepas and Icaur also being prepared for the British market, the arrival of cars wearing the badge of the original Chery brand surprised some onlookers.
When did Chery launch in the UK?
At time of writing, Chery is in the process of its UK launch programme, which kicks off in September 2025. Cars will be hitting roads almost immediately afterwards.
Chery’s Omoda and Jaecoo brands are already rapidly becoming familiar. After only a year on the UK market, by August the two brands have already sold 20,000 cars and established a dealer network of more than 70 outlets across the country.
What models does Chery have and what else is coming?
Chery’s initial UK offerings are a pair of SUVs – the Tiggo 7 and the Tiggo 8.
The Tiggo 7 is intended as a low-price mid-sized SUV which will be available with either a 1.6-litre petrol engine or a plug-in hybrid petrol unit – the latter has two motors, one on each axle and can cover 56 miles on electric power only. Chery has Dacia’s recently launched Bigster firmly in its sights with the Tiggo 7 costing under £25,000 for the petrol version and under £30,000 for its plug-in sibling.
The Tiggo 8 is effectively a larger Tiggo 7 – while it comes with the same choice of drivetrains, it has seven seats on offer. Prices for the Tiggo 8 are yet to be announced.
What will follow these is yet to be revealed – they could be Chery models, or something with a completely new badge or two…
Where can I try a Chery car?
With Chery only just launching in the UK, opportunities to try its cars out are currently few and far between, but we should expect this to change rapidly. The company’s Omoda and Jaecoo brands quickly gained a solid network of outlets and with Chery having confirmed it will seek its own dedicated outlets, a similar aggressive programme to sign up dealers is likely.
Several of these are likely to be those groups that already have Omoda and Jaecoo franchises – this is certainly true of one of the first to announce it will open Chery showrooms, major northern-based dealer group Arnold Clark.
What’s particularly significant about this company?
Chery might not be a name familiar to UK motorists, even those who have got used to other heavily promoted Chinese brands such as BYD. But on the global automotive market, Chery puts all its home rivals in the shade.
The group has been China’s largest exporter of automobiles since 2003. In 2024, Chery exported more than 1.1 million vehicles to 80-plus markets around the world – and in future more and more of them are going to be coming to the UK.
What makes Chery different to the rest?
The traditional method of growing an automotive brand has been to offer a range of cars in different markets but under the same badge, the only expansion beyond this being the launch of upmarket sub brands such as Lexus from Toyota and Genesis from Hyundai. And generally the new Chinese entrants such as BYD and GWM seem to be following this model.
Not Chery – the group almost seems to want to launch new brand names more often than individual models. Even though it has pulled back from the excesses of the mid-2000s with more than 100 model lines, as of mid-2025 Chery has at least 14 different brands selling across the globe with well over 50 different models.
Summary
Following the progress of Chery’s expansion into the UK promises to be challenging, simply because the number of different areas the group is getting into – this is without doubt the most complex of all the new Chinese entrants coming into the UK.
However, the track record already established in under two years by Chery brands Omoda and Jaecoo, and the recent export record of the group as a while, suggest that it will not be long before the Chery badge is just as familiar as those of BYD or Omoda.