Chery Automobile and Proton, possible partners

Couple of days ago some news surfaced that Chery Automobile is trying to make a partnership with the Malaysian company Proton to gain some ground in their market. Apparently Chery Automobile wants Proton to build two of their models and sell it in Malaysia. We don't know what cars they're talking about though. The source also said that in the first phase only 50 or 60 cars will be made when they're finished talking about it with Chery Automobile. So far Chery Automobile sold 300,000 cars last year in China, with around 50,000 cars exported.

Chery Automobile has around 8% of th Chinese market, which makes it the fourth largest auto manufacturer in China. Its expected to increase around 15-20% in 2007, while the total number of car sales will probably be around 8,000,000 this year. Yet another example of Chery Automobile expanding in new markets. Good for them!

Chery car no. 1 million to be produced in 2007

Great news for the Chery lovers out there. Chery announced that in 2007 they will build the car with the number 1 million. By 2010 Chery will have a total production capacity of 1 million cars per year, and that's simply great! While they had a 120% rise in production in 2005, Chery got a 60% increase in 2006, going to a production capacity of 300,000 cars/year. Going from 300,000 to 1,000,000 in 4 years is an ambitious plan, but I'm sure they can do it. I think Chery is the best chinese auto manufacturer right now and I'm sure they will be a world player in the next ten years or so.
Lately Chery has been trying to export its products in different markets like North America and Europe. The total number of cars exported in 2006 was 50,000, 180% up. Those are great numbers and you can really see Chery taking speed. With the talks they had with Fiat and Daimler Chrysler and the IPO that will come in 2008, I see great future for this company.

The Chery Tiggo, the chinese SUV

Unfortunately this Chery Tiggo SUV is not their own design, but rather yet another car copied by Chery from the Toyota RAV4. If you'll look at the pictures you'll see that the cars are almost identical, while the Chery Tiggo has a much worse safety rating. The Chery Tiggo is a small SUV and it was launched into production in 2006. It's got five doors and has both front wheel and all wheel drive. This Chery SUV has three engines, all gasoline, with capacities of 1.6L, 2.0L and 2.4L. The Chery Tiggo is 4285mm long, 1765mm wide and 1705mm in height.

I heard some news a few months ago that Chery wanted to build the Tiggo and the QQ in Uruguay together with the argentinian company Socma. Chery will own 51% of this new company and the target markets for the cars that will be built there are the countries from South America, in the Mercosur trade bloc. Originally this argentinian company was building french and italian cars in the 1990's. Let's see how this goes. I suspect that the cheap Chery cars will have some success in South America but, to be honest, if I don't have too much money I'd rather go for a second hand car that often can be more reliable then a Chery QQ or Tiggo.

Chery QQ presentation

Chery begun the production of the QQ in 2003, later renamed the Chery QQ3 when the QQ6 supermini was launched. I talked before about the copying of the Daewoo Matiz by Chery so I'm not gonna go back on that. The price in China for the Chery QQ is around 3400 euro. The Chery car is also gonna be sold in Europe soon, but with a bit higher price, of around 5000 euro, making it the cheapest car to be sold in Europe. Besides China the Chery is also built in Rusia and Iran. I'm thinking that the Chery cars for Europe will probably be built in the Rusia plant, but I'm not sure on the capacity of that factory. The Chery QQ comes with two engines, both on petrol, and both Euro 3 compliant. The smaller one is a 0.8L and the other is a 1.1L.

An interesting situation is at the Chery Iran plant. Initially the Iran factory was making Daewoo Matiz models. When Daewoo was taken by GM, Iran stopped receiving car kits so they talked with Chery and made a contract for Chery QQ kits. So, again, the resemblance between the Chery QQ and the Daewoo Matiz is amazing.

Chery Flagcloud presentation

The Chery Flagcloud, also known as the A15, is basicly an upgraded Seat Toledo, which was built under the codename A11 in the past. The Chery Flagcloud has a 1.6L engine and a much better interior then the old Toledo had. The 1.6L engine has 114HP and its very efficient when it comes to fuel.

When it comes to safety, the Chery Flagcloud has ABS, EBD and other braking technologies that help it stop in the worst conditions. If we're talking about comfort then the air conditioner and the power sunroof really help in this department for the Chery limousine.

The Chery has a manual transmission, front airbags for the driver and the passenger, a 6 disc CD player but only 4 speakers unfortunately. The Chery has pre-tensioned seat belts, leather interior, 15" alloy wheels, electric windows and even keyless entry. Chery really done well on this car.

With 4393 mm in length, the Chery Flagcloud is a nice car to have for a family and when it comes to speed the Chery gets you from 0 to 100 km/h in 10.5 seconds with a maximum speed of 185km/h.

Chery exports tripled in 2006

Great news for Chery. They really finished 2006 in style with an almost triple number of cars exported. While Chery exported 18000 cars in 2005, the number sold outside of China in 2006 was around 50000. All in all, the total number of cars sold by Chery, in China and outside, was up by 61%. That's a huge increase and one can only hope that Chery will continue to grow like this in the years to come. Another good news is the deal that Chery made with Chrysler with a plan to make small cars for them, possibly for export in the US. Another good deal made by Chery in 2006 was the partnership with Fiat, which will receive around 100000 engines from the chinese company.
If we're talking about more then just Chery, then the total car export from China doubled compared with the last year.