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Now it appears that Chery, China’s fourth-largest carmaker, which sold 2,603,916 vehicles in 2024 through its nine brands and joint ventures including with Jaguar Land Rover, is close to finalizing a deal to take over the two plants as it prepares to expand into European markets.
If it comes to an agreement to purchase the two German plants, it intends to manufacture models for its brand-new Lepas brand that was launched only a few weeks ago, on April 2, and sells modified versions of Chery‘s Tiggo range that will be available in global markets. European-made models will include two compact and one midsize SUVs with combustion, plug-in hybrid or all-electric powertrains.
Chery is no stranger to building cars in Europe in an effort to avoid the hefty taxes imposed on Chinese EVs by the EU as, since 2024, it has been assembling cars at a former Nissan factory in Barcelona, Spain in partnership with local firm Ebro.
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If German unions keep tight control of the working conditions and pay, perhaps this is a decent strategy for getting cheaper EVs into Europe.
German EVs are expensive because of profit maximisation, not by people trying to feed their families.
IMO, the prerequisite for cheaper EVs is offering models that are not SUVs. The article is a bit ambiguous about this, but “European-made models will include two compact and one midsize SUVs with combustion, plug-in hybrid or all-electric powertrains.” sounds to me like they’re mostly going to make ‘compact SUVs’ and ‘midsize SUVs’. Or the article’s author just focuses on their SUV offerings while ignoring smaller cars.
There are a lot of contradictions in this sentence.
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Why, cost of labor?
I didn’t downvote btw.
Tight working conditions and pay is what makes German cars so expensive.
What’s your issue with German auto unions?
I think they meant that pay is pretty good at German VW facilities so there’s no way they can produce them very cheaply.
There is. Make a substantial amount of profit instead of a shitton of profit.
So far Chinese cars have been adopted really slowly in Germany. People don’t really trust the manufacturers.
And I don’t think that’s an issue with Chinese cars specifically but more about new manufacturers in general. Germans want to be sure the brand still exists at least until they plan to sell it, so they can get service and it doesn’t lose too much value.
Exactly. So many of the new manufacturers have already dropped out, including companies like Fisker that had US funding and production in the EU. That scares people. I wouldn’t want to buy a car that does not boot up because the servers went offline.
I’ve been seeing quite a lot of chinese cars, actually (all of them EVs). I think they might be more common than Tesla in my area.
There are some, but not nearly as many as I would expect when looking at price performance ratio.
I guess they hope that a new Brand plus the “Made in Germany” label might change that. Customers might not even be aware they’re buying a chinese brand.
It takes time to build trust.
Wonder how long until we see more Lepas on the road than Lexus
Tbh I havent seen a Lexus here in Germany for ages.
What about regular Toyota?
Not as common as in the past but still around I’d say.
I think it’s more that China is turning the table on Germany here. Dodging tariffs isn’t very effective when your vehicles end up even more expansive because they’re produced in a high income country. I see this move as more of a symbolic one and perhaps a training ground for further expansion.
Weren’t VW and Rheinmetall in talks for some of the plants to start producing military vehicles
