Chinese carmaker Chery to launch surprise new car brand in the UK – Electrifying.com
Sam Burnett
Are we approaching saturation point for new brands? Chinese carmaker Chery has announced that it is to launch yet another brand in the UK market.
We didn’t have a new carmaker on our Wednesday bingo sheet, but here it is. In addition to Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo, the company’s portfolio will now include Lepas, which is being marketed as a “new energy” brand that has apparently been designed “for the European market from the outset”.
The European focused brand is headquartered in Wuhu, China, and was launched in April last year at a Chery event in the country. Its first car, the Lepas L8, has already gone on sale in Indonesia and is about to go on sale in South Africa and Australia. That car is a rebadged version of Chery’s Tiggo 8, which is already on sale in the UK.
The company is described in the announcement as “bolder, more imaginative, and packed with smart technology and thoughtful design”. The Lepas name is said to combine ‘leopard’, ‘leap’ and ‘passion’ in a way that certainly gets us excited for the limitless potential of the new arrival.
The first car from the new brand will be launched in the UK in late summer – fingers crossed for a genre redefining lifestyle-oriented family car or perhaps a nice little convertible with all this talk of bold imagination, though it’ll more likely be a rebadged Chery with a nicer grille.
The news comes days after it was revealed that Chery is set to build a new European headquarters in Liverpool that will support research and development work for its commercial arm, Karry, which is also preparing to launch imminently in the UK.
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