Jaecoo (an adventurous brand under the Chery umbrella), has officially launched in NZ. Not only have they led the charge with an all-rounder SUV named the J7, but they have priced both the 2WD and AWD models rather aggressively.
We managed to grab some time with Chery Motor Australia’s Chief Operating Officer, Lucas Harris. He’s an ex-Kiwi that’s evidently living the dream.
According to Lucas, he first moved to Aus to work for a retail dealer group in Sydney, a group with several different franchises, and then not long after that he moved to Subaru Australia where I worked for four years. However, in February 2023 he made the move to Chery. He explains why.
“I’ve been in the industry 20 years now, and for a lot of that time, probably like most, didn’t think that highly of some of the Chinese brands. But I remember sort of changing my way and thinking with a lot of the new product that was coming in. So the opportunity with Chery came up and I looked a little more into it and just seemed interesting.”
Lucas says that obviously the move was good for career progression, good to be involved with something that’s new, however he believes that for a lot of the established brands, the landscape’s going to change a lot. Not only in Australia, but all around the world.
“The technology and the quality now of the automotive product coming out of China is phenomenally different in such a short period of time. And they can really have quite attractive pricing which makes a high-standard vehicle quite accessible.”
Lucas is quick to add that it’s not because it’s low quality or because of cutting corners. It’s due to smart manufacturing.
“So a lot of the factories there are heavily automated, and they’ve really tried to change how they produce some of the bodies. So for example, in this car that we’re sitting in now (the Jaecoo J7), when they produce the chassis, it’s four big panels, so two sides, the roof and the bottom. They stamp the entire side out of one piece of metal, rather than having to join several different sheets together.”
He says that it’s the little things like that, where they’re gaining efficiencies in production and they can automate that process too, which helps with production costs significantly. What’s more, it’s all done without compromising safety standards, in fact quite the opposite.
Lucas says, “Chery has the largest independent automotive safety testing centre in all of Asia. We have the capacity to crash four or five cars a day – crashing and development. Sled testing, crash simulations, and the real crashing, they’ve got a whole dummy family there. It’s really a part of that development journey to make sure that the cars can stand up to the latest standards.”
He continues, “So the Omoda 5 gets the five star rating, the two products we’ve just launched in Australia, Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 followed suit with 5 star rating, and our cars really are designed to consistently meet that standard. So although the J7 is not rated yet, the ratings, hopefully not far around the corner.”
It’s incredibly well resourced too, with Lucas believing that there are something like 6000 engineers in Wuhu, which is our hometown.
Historically, the Chinese brands have notoriously copied other marques, but Lucas feels that across the board they’ve not only caught up, they’ve overtaken in so many different areas.
“It’s amazing. I’ve had the good fortune to have been to my fair share of car factories but I’ve never been as blown away as I have been going through Chery’s Gigafactory in Wuhi for the first time. It was just unbelievable. immaculately clean. We’ve got an engineering or homologation partner in Australia who’s been an engineer with GM for 30 plus years and he was like a kid in a candy shop and when he was walking through looking at all the machines.”
He says that it’s also the reliability, durability aspect as well, explaining that in their test centre they also have an engine transmission test facility where they are longevity testing the components to make sure they last.
“They have the NVH environment to try and reduce road noise and all those sorts of things.”
Testing and developing in the factory is one thing, however, Lucas says that before they release cars in Australia, they do testing in Australia for durability on the road, in the bush, around town, anywhere they can to try and create issues to solve before they bring the cars to market.
“You know ADAS systems have been a big change in technology for all brands, and unless you are tuning and developing those systems in the local market where they’re going to be used it’s really hard to get it right.
“The roads in China are amazing. They’re beautifully kept, perfect line markings nice and wide. But it’s a very different story back here in Australia or New Zealand. They’re not as consistent with road markings and all those sorts of things. So we fly the engineers out, and they’re live tuning as we go to get it just right.”
He says that they have to do all of that BEFORE they do ANCAP testing, because obviously it still needs to meet that standard.
“I think ANCAP cop a lot of unfair criticism around what their requirements are. They are trying to make the cars as safe as possible for consumers. It’s the OEMs responsibility to try and make the driving experience and the usability as good for consumers as possible and find that balance in between. It’s not impossible.”
It’s fair to say that with their vast amount of products available across the Chary brands, they are undoubtedly going to be launching more of them onto the A/NZ market – is there room for more?
Lucas pondered for a moment before answering. “That’s a great question. And it’s a heavily saturated market with a huge amount of options for consumers, but in short, there is room for good quality, good value, attractive vehicles. It’s really that simple.”
He says that he’s quietly confident that they’re going to be able to deliver on some of those value promises at a time where it’s tough out there, and when consumers have become more and more conscious about value.
“But all of that’s the easy part. The most important part is, what do we do afterwards to support them? Everybody wants to sell lots of cars, but once they’re on the road, how are we going to go about supporting customers and dealers? That is a keen focus for us as well.”
Not only is their range of vehicle options large, but so too are their powertrains, with ICE, EV and PHEV on the way. Lucas proudly says that this variety gives consumers the option to cherry (Chery) pick and hone in on what works for them. However, they may have to wait for Hydrogen, as it’s not on the cards for them at this stage.
