Chinese car company announces fourth brand in the UK – with four more coming

This is richly-deserved success, although there are some legacy car makers that won’t survive, writes EV editor Steve Fowler

Chery's iCar brand could be another new arrival in the UK, bringing rugged-looking SUVs that will appeal to British buyers (Steve Fowler)

UK car buyers have had to get used to a lot of new brands over the past few years. The introduction of these launches are met with increasing consumer enthusiasm, too.

BYD, for example (which quickly took my advice to stick with BYD and not plaster Build Your Dreams across the back of every car) sold 51,422 cars in the UK last year – giving them a 2.5 per cent share of the market. That’s more than Citroen, Cupra, Dacia, Honda, Mazda and a host of other established brands.

Meanwhile, Chery International, with its group of brands Chery, Jaecoo and Omoda, sold a combined 53,604 cars or 2.65 per cent of the total UK market. Those numbers are expected to grow, especially with Chery announcing Lepas as a fourth brand for the UK coming later this year.

The Lepas L6 could be one of the first Lepas models in the UK, based on tech shared with Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo models (Lepas)

That news follows reports that Chery plans to set up a European base in Liverpool for its commercial vehicle operations. And there are rumours that it could even work with its partner in China, JLR, to build Chery models here in the UK.

It’s also entirely possible that Lepas won’t be the last Chery brand to arrive in the UK. Most likely next will be Karry, its brand for vans and other commercial vehicles. It’s a great name for a truck and makes you wonder why somebody else didn’t get there first.

If Stellantis can have a total of 15 different brands sold across the world – with ten of them in the UK – why not Chery?

Then there are other Chery brands: Exeed, Jetour and iCar – the latter making some impressive SUVs that would go down very well over here. And if Stellantis can have a total of 15 different brands sold across the world – with 10 of them in the UK – why not Chery?

It’s not only Chery looking at UK expansion. Unsurprisingly, BYD has the bug, too. Having already committed to its premium Denza brand turning up in the UK in the summer, Yangwang – a Ferrari rival, which is a bit ambitious – could also be arriving. At least Yangwang currently has the fastest car in the world in its stable – the U9 Xtreme.

Changan is only just establishing itself in the UK with its Deepal brand, yet its boss has already hinted to me that Avatr and Changan-branded models are coming, too.

Meanwhile, MG has made a bit of a mess of IM by trying to integrate it under the MG brand when the IM cars don’t even wear MG badges. Then there’s GWM, which – having quickly morphed the Ora Funky Cat into the Ora 003 – has added the Haval brand to its stable with Tank (yes, big SUVs are a possibility, too).

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This is all before Geely expands further with its (rather nice) Zeekr models, and Li Auto, Seres, Aiways, Aion and Xiamoi arrive here, too.

All that said, I can hear in the background the words of Skoda board member Martin Jahn who told me that not all Chinese car makers will survive – China has a fail-fast mentality with brands like Hi-Phi disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared.

Chinese brand Hi-Phi disappeared before it had arrived in the UK, despite a range of appealing and very different models (Steve Fowler)

I’d argue that there are legacy car makers that won’t survive, too – and some probably don’t deserve to. Too many laurels have been rested upon.

Which brings us back to Chery. Choice is good (as is the value that the cars are offering right now), which makes its – and the likes of BYD’s – success richly deserved.

Some clearly don’t like the interminable march of the Chinese car makers, but ultimately, I say let the buyer decide. And by the looks of the sales numbers that are just rolling in for the first month of 2026, they’ve already made their minds up.