Australia included in massive Chery EV rollout

On the eve of its Australian relaunch, the Chinese auto maker Chery Automobile has revealed a massive rollout of 23 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Slated to launch within the next few years, they will be based on a new family of three architectures the brand is developing.

Many will be bound for Australia as Chery has publicly declared a wildly ambitious target to sell 75,000 vehicles per annum in Australia by 2027 (to put that in perspective, if it achieved those lofty figures it would make Chery the third best selling brand in Australia). Outside China, it hopes to be selling two million vehicles by 2030.

The first battery electric Chery to arrive in Australia will be the Omoda 5 compact SUV in 2024.

That vehicle launches in orthodox ICE form early in 2023 in Australia, with a plug-in hybrid due before the end of 2023.

Rather than being based on one of the three new platforms, the Omoda 5 BEV will be based on an adaptation of the existing T1X monocoque platform used by the orthodox model.

It promises to then roll out more BEVs based on T1X, meaning the EV count will climb even higher.

Chery promises to launch compact SUVs, crossovers and even a ute based on the modified T1X architecture.

But the even bigger effort is going into the new architectures; E0X is for electric passenger cars and SUVs, C0X is for battery electric light commercial vehicles and T2X is for medium and large plug-in hybrid SUVs.

All up, Chery says it will base 18 BEVs and five PHEVs on these architectures in the next few years.

In addition to all these EV plans, Chery Auto sister company Chery New Energy already builds a family of EVs for the Chinese market, including the recently-launched EQ5 SUV that uses a dedicated electric platform dubbed LFS.

Chery New Energy has said it will export models from the EQ family but unlike Chery Auto has announced no specific Australian plans.

“E0X is high performing pure electric car product platforms,” Chery International executive vice president Charlie Zhang said in a media briefing.

“The first two models will be E03 and E0Y, followed by E05 and E06 … A range of new products will be developed on this new platform. So this is pretty strategic.

“Next year you will see the first two models will be unveiled.”

Chinese media reports indicate the E03 is a new sedan to be sold by Chery’s Exeed premium brand. E0Y is an SUV that is also expected to get Exeed badging.

While Exeed is regarded as an international brand by Chery Auto, there is no indication if it will launch here or if E03 and E0Y could come to Australia rebadged as Chery vehicles.

E03 is due for release by September 2023 and the E0Y by December 2023.

“We benchmark those two vehicles against the Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y,” revealed Zhang. “So 4.9 metres long and 3.0 metres wheelbase. So very, very nice.”

Zhang said the C0X product platform used skateboard technology with different bodies fitted to it.

“It can be used for both passenger and cargo purposes. So we are developing this new C0X platform on which a range of new LCVs can be developed.

“Also, T2X product platforms is our medium and larger sized SUV product platforms.

“Obviously, we will introduce those new models to Australia in the coming years.”