Chery wants to Australianise its cars to make them appeal to Americans
Locally, Chery has enjoyed substantial growth in its first few years. To the end of June 2025, the brand had recorded a whopping 228.8 per cent increase in sales from the same period in 2024, the largest of any brand – even the hard-charging BYD.
This success has provided Chery with a wealth of feedback and guidance on how to improve its vehicles, with brand chief engineer David Xianqiang Lu telling CarExpert that the lessons learned can also help prepare it for potential future efforts in countries like the US.
'From any point of view, the Australian market is very, very important, and that's a reason to come here and try and start in the market,' he said.
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ABOVE: Chery Himla
'We consider at least two directions right now. One is, in my opinion, that the user here, and the user conditions here, are very close to the USA market.
'That's our next target where we want to go, I don't know whether that's the right words or not, but that's our ambition.'
The US market is uncharted territory for Chinese brands. Efforts to stop Chinese cars from infiltrating its market have led the US Government to impose substantial tariffs on vehicles from the country, which means there are currently no Chinese brands operating in the US, though there are Chinese-owned ones such as Volvo, Polestar and Lotus.
A 100 per cent tariff was slugged on Chinese EVs in 2024, followed by reciprocal tariffs imposed on the US by China. Despite that, brands like Chery are planning for the US' stance to soften in the coming years, opening the door for expanded global operations.
ABOVE: Chery E5
'I know there are a lot of issues there, but that's a different story. As a company and an engineer, we are looking for the markets where we want to go,' Mr Lu told CarExpert.
'I believe the Australian market can help us learn a lot about the USA market. We've mentioned about a [pickup], with important towing capacities, which are also very big in USA market, so we can learn a lot.'
Indeed, Chery has been developing new utes for some time, after earlier efforts like the Karry Higgo and Aika were phased out.
It revealed a new ute, the Himla, at this year's Shanghai auto show, and it's understood several others are waiting in the wings – including a yet-to-be-revealed plug-in hybrid (PHEV) expected to come to Australia.
ABOVE: The F700 ute, from the Chery-owned Jetour brand.
It seems Australia could serve as a test bed for these vehicles, which will undoubtedly vary in size, powertrains, and construction (i.e. body-on-frame or unibody), to prove their worth before being shipped elsewhere.
'The other thing is the geographical position, this off-season. For us, in China right now it's summer, very hot, here it's winter,' Mr Lu told CarExpert.
'Australia also has some mountain area with snow and these kinds of things; we can test a vehicle here. Working together, leveraging global resources, we can further speed up our development process.'
Any local development undertaken by Chery would follow similar efforts from other Chinese brands, including GWM, which recently hired former Holden handling tuner Rob Trubiani to spearhead local development efforts. Non-Chinese brands like Ford, Kia and Mitsubishi are also heavily involved in Australian vehicle tuning.
ABOVE: Chery Tiggo 8
Additionally, Mr Lu outlined feedback received from Australian customers and media was always relayed to Chery's head office in China, which has informed the development of new models and tech, as well as updates for its existing lineup.
'Also the user here is different. I remember the first article I saw was from [CarExpert], the gentleman wrote about Chery's vehicle, he mentioned that the vehicle tuning and handling was not that good, suspension not that good,' he told CarExpert.
'We really take a lot of comments, and try to [improve] that. That's another thing, we really let the local experts help us tune the vehicle, maybe even special versions.'
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