Chery, the largest car exporter in China and first time exhibiter at the 2017 International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, is now following up on the announcements made in September of last year and is coming to Germany.
Chery has selected the Frankfurt area and specifically the city of Raunheim am Main. The newly founded Chery Europe GmbH will begin to work here in January 2019. “We are thus creating the basis for our market entry in Europe,” says Jochen Tueting who is in charge of building up the company’s R&D center at Raunheim. A team of automotive experts is making the start. The acquisition of employees for the R&D centre has already started. The aim is to employ around 30 to 50 people in an initial phase by the end of 2019.
“We at Chery are aware that a serious and globally active automobile manufacturer must be present in the most important markets,” explains Chery’s Chairman Tongyue Yin. “At last year’s IAA, we presented ourselves as a brand, now we’re going to execute our plans in and for Europe. We will therefore be launching models from our high-end brand EXEED that will be competitive with the leading European manufacturers in terms of quality, design and technology.”
The core areas of the Chery R&D center in Raunheim are research & development, design and marketing & sales. The focus is to carefully prepare the market launch of EXEED models in European markets sometime after 2020.
A German location, European automotive experts and extensive cooperation with renowned suppliers play a key role in Chery’s plan to develop a global development network in the coming years to promote the introduction of vehicles in the world’s most demanding markets. The aim is to bundle market-specific know-how and local expertise and incorporate them into the entire vehicle development process.
“If Chery is to become a truly global brand, we have to go to Europe,” says Mr. Yin, making clear how important he considers the European car market to be in the Chinese car manufacturer’s efforts to match major global OEMs as soon as possible. Chery will focus on e-mobility, so a fully electric EXEED vehicle is “very likely” to become the first model to enter the European market.
Chery Automobile Co. Ltd. is China’s leading exporter of vehicles. With a total of more than 1.5 million units sold globally, more than 108,000 of them in 2017 alone, the group has been the leader for 15 years and is responsible for about 30% of all Chinese vehicle exports. From January to August 2018, Chery has already sold more than 462,000 vehicles, an increase of 13% over the same period last year. At 231%, the growth in electrified vehicles is particularly high with around 50,000 sales. The foreign business of the company, which was founded in 1997, comprises more than 80 countries and regions. Chery has over 14,000 employees worldwide, 5,500 of whom work in research and development. More than 20 passenger car model series are currently manufactured at 14 production and assembly sites. Further information can be found at www.cheryinternational.com.
