[Chery News] Chery has undergone a rebrand and brought in a team of highly qualified R&D specialists with its sights firmly fixed on viably competing in the global market by 2020.
The China’s leading carmaker has undertaken a major restructure of its R&D operations and brought in personel with experience working for such firms as Porsche, General Motors, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and automotive component and systems supplier Delphi. This comes on the back of a slew of new developments regarding design and engineering.
Chery has also announced that it will drop a couple of its domestic sub-brands (Rely and Riich) in order to better focus on the development of passenger vehicles. This will see the model range roughly halved from 21 to around 11 offerings spanning the A00, A0, A, B and SUV segments.
The company has also changed its 16-year old logo to reflect its movement upmarket.
Among the new acquistions within the firm’s R&D operations are:
Dr. Chen Anning – who’s career includes 20 years at Ford and was head of that company’s global business unit before joining Chery three years ago. He is also chairman of the new joint venture in China between Chery and Jaguar-Land Rover.
Dr. Klaus Badenhausen – formerly vice president of engineering at Magna Steyr and a head of engineering and design at Smart within the Daimler Group. He is now the vice general manager responsible for the Chery technical centre in Shanghai.
James Hope – a former chief designer at Ford, DaimlerChrysler and GM Opel, who is now corporate design director responsible for all Chery brand vehicles.
Dr. Hu Hongxing – a former executive director at Fiat, the Panasonic technical centre and Flextronics automotive electronics products and a senior engineer at the General Motors R&D centre. He is now the director of Chery’s electrical and electronic engineering institute responsible for the design and R&D of all electric and electronic components.
Dr. Ma Doren – a former director of automotive safety systems at Delphi Automotive Asia. He is now director of Chery’s engineering centre responsible for vehicle testing and engineering development.
Hakan Saracoglu – a former senior designer at Porsche responsible for the Cayman, Boxster, 911 series and the 918 Spyder. He is now the design director in charge of the Chery design centre in Shanghai.
Dr. Huan Yong – a former technical specialist and product manager at Ford and Visteon USA. He is now the Chery platform director.
Sergio Loureiro – formerly a designer at BMW Peugeot-Citroën, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz. He is now responsible for the overall interior and exterior design of all Chery vehicles.
