Jochen Tueting (Chery): ‘We will deepen our collaboration with our established partners in Europe”

Jochen Tueting is leading the European strategy of Chery, a benchmark in the export of Chinese models to various markets worldwide. With an R&D centre in Germany, Chery hopes to boost its projection in Europe by 2025. Interview published in AutoRevista 2.398

AutoRevista.- Reading the press release summarising Chery's figures for 2024, the company has reached a historic milestone. How has Chery's projection in Europe influenced this qualitative and quantitative leap and how will it influence the three million units sold that could be reached by 2025?

Jochen Tueting.- We are very happy with our initial sales performance of our dual brand OMODA&JAECOO in the European markets in 2024 in Spain, Italy, Poland, UK and Hungary. But although having achieved very positive results, the total sales in Europe didn´t have a very significant impact on global sales in 2024 yet. We expect this impact to become much bigger in 2025 with some of our new 2024 launch markets getting more mature and adding high volume markets like Germany or France in 2025 for our OMODA&JAECOO line-up that is focused on models in the B, C and D segments as well as a broad mix of different powertrain variants typical of Chery, from pure petrol to PHEV/HEV and all-electric vehicles.

AR.- Chery has an R&D centre in Europe. What has been the role of this centre in Germany for Chery's development in Europe so far and what will it be in the near future?

J.T.- Our R&D and design center in Germany near Frankfurt has significantly contributed in 2 aspects: A local team of around 30 designers have created new products for global markets, adapted vehicles to European customer design taste and has developed future concept and show cars across different Chery brands. In parallel our local Engineering team has adapted our vehicles to European customer requirements, with high focus on Vehicle Dynamics, Smart Cockpit and ADAS, but also ensuring a good customer experience in charging or thermal comfort.

Our local Engineering team has adapted our vehicles to the needs of European customers, with a strong focus on Vehicle Dynamics, Smart Cockpit and ADAS

AR.- The company is established in Europe since 2018. How can the expectations change since the beginning until now with the years of COVID pandemic in between?

J.T.- Our aim in 2018 was to establish a local footprint in the very early stage of our European market development. It was important for us to form a multi-national team of experienced designers and engineers who really understand the European customer. Although Chery Europe is situated in Germany, our team consists of 17 nationalities ensuring a very diverse working environment with a huge variety of different backgrounds, know-how and experience. The pandemic did not have a big impact on Chery´s European plans – but the fact to have a R&D and design center in Germany helped especially on the design side to keep projects running during the major shut-down in China.

AR.- What are the reasons for Chery to start introducing Omoda and Jaecoo models in Europe starting with Spain? Can we expect in the medium term the arrival of other brands such as Exeed or Exlantix?

J,T.- The OMODA&JAECOO dual brand have been developed with a clear focus on international markets. While OMODA models appear as high technology and fashionable crossover SUV, JAECOO fulfills the role of an elegant urban SUV – both are designed as volume models with a very attractive value for money proposition. We saw Spain being a perfect match for this dual brand with customers being less brand-focused compared to some other European markets and looking for new products with great design at a reasonable price point. But yes, we will see other Chery brands coming to Europe a little later, including but not necessarily limited to EXLANTIX which will allow us to offer vehicles in the premium segment as well.

We believe that Spain is the perfect place for OMODA&JAECOO, as customers are less brand conscious than in other European markets and are looking for new products with great design at a reasonable price

AR.- What is Chery's position in the Chinese market and how is the volume of 44% of production for export distributed? What will be the key markets in Europe? In which other parts of the world?

J.T.- With total sales volume of more than 2.6 million cars in 2024, Chery is now the third biggest Chinese OEM if you disregard joint-venture sales. We saw very strong growth in the Chinese domestic market for Chery being the no.1 in the domestic SUV market with a market segment share of more than 14.5%. Chery is currently present in more than 110 markets worldwide. This fact really helps to diversify global sales and avoiding dominant markets. We have been extremely successful in some South American markets, but also in Mexico or Turkey with almost 5% market share.

AR.- How will Chery's joint ventures with JLR and EV Motors be further developed? How will the supplier base in Europe be further developed based on the experience of cooperation with suppliers such as Bosch, AVL, Continental or Getrag?

J.T.- At Chery we truly believe in partnerships and we will continue to further intensify existing partnerships as well as establishing new ones. For our European products, we will deepen our collaboration with our established partners in Europe, both, in the area of market adaptation but also for localization.

AR.- What is Chery's view of the slow evolution, at least in Spain, of the demand for electric vehicles? How will it combine the offer of electric, hybrid and combustion vehicles?

J.T.- For the whole industry, the slower than anticipated customer acceptance of EVs is making it very difficult to meet the EU CO2 fleet targets for 2025. As an OEM, we have limited possibilities as topics like charging infrastructure or changing governmental subsidy programs are out of our control. But we will do whatever we can to offer BEVs and PHEVs at reasonable price points to have an attractive offer available for customers who are interested in electrified vehicles (referred to as NEV = New Energy Vehicles in China).

We are studying different options for future vehicle production/assembly for the European markets

AR.- In addition to the JV with EV Motors, which makes it possible to assemble vehicles in Spain, are new production plants in Europe being considered?

J.T.- We are looking at different options for future vehicle production/assembly for the European markets. While no final decision has been made, I am confident that we will have more news on this subject during the course of 2025.

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