What wasn’t mentioned was Chery’s links to JLR: it has assembled Land Rovers and Jaguars in a Chinese joint-venture since 2014, and has the licence to create upcoming SUVs under the Freelander brand. This relationship will have fed Chery’s “20-year preparation” to become sufficiently competitive to enter the UK market. And truth be told it’s already here, having launched the Omoda and Jaecoo brands in January 2025 – and made big market inroads since.
Ah! How is Chery positioned beside Omoda and Jaecoo then?
Jaecoo is the more premium brand, with its upright SUV styling and vertical grille reminiscent of Range Rovers. Its Jaecoo 7 SUV starts at £30,115 for the 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol, and £35,165 for the 201bhp plug-in hybrid. No need to memorise those drivetrain specs because they are the same on the Chery Tiggo 7, which costs from £24,995, and the equivalent Omoda.
Talking of which, Omoda offers “more fashionable, forward-looking crossovers, appealing to a younger generation” explains Gary Lan, who runs all three brands in the UK. That means cascading, shimmering grilles like the Hyundai Tucson introduced and edgier surfacing – at similar prices to the equivalent Chery.
It’s a real cookie cutter approach to new models, with those three SUVs sharing the same fundamental chassis and being similar in length, all measuring between 4.5 and 4.6-metres in length.
So what does Chery stand out for – design?
Chery displayed the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 launch cars, the flagship Tiggo 9 that will arrive around the end of 2025 and the 4.3m-long Tiggo 4 which is due by March 2026. Four SUVs priced from about £20-40k on sale within nine months.
They all have a strong family resemblance but that family is rather non-descript: it’s like the original DS 7 diluted with a bit of Ford and Audi. Perhaps the brief to the European and Chinese design studio was to create a neat and tidy range of SUVs that won’t offend anyone, but equally won’t stand out.
Advertisement – Article continues below