China’s largest vehicle exporter, Chery, is planning a comprehensive NEV strike for international markets including South Africa in 2024 with HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs.
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Chery has stated it is ready to “strike on all fronts” in 2024 as it fully commits to introducing a host of NEV vehicles to the local market. The group, which has officially become the largest vehicle exporter in China, plans on importing new hybrid (HEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), battery electric (BEV) and other NEV models into international markets in the coming year.
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Chery has outperformed the South African market consistently over the past two years, and we believe that we can further accelerate our sales performance by entering the NEV market. As our short history in South Africa has shown, we do not simply enter a new market segment with a new model. We compete aggressively by offering some of the best specifications, the best possible warranty and the best possible range of value-added products. This has allowed us not only to win sales from competitor brands, but also to grow the market segment that we have entered,” says Tony Liu, Deputy Executive General Manager of Chery South Africa.
Liu’s comments are pertinent to the South African NEV market segment, which has remained quite small compared to the traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) market. Chery further adds that in China, there has seen significant sales growth in the NEV market with its range of PHEV and BEV models. This includes its new Tiggo 7 Pro and Tiggo 8 Pro Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles.
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Under the bonnet of the Tiggo PHEV models is an in house developed proprietary hybrid system that has been tested for over 5 million km and 30 000 hours. Chery claims that this new system is “one of the most comprehensively tested propulsion systems in the history of the automotive world.”
At the heart of this system is a new dual electric motor system with a clean-burning turbo-petrol internal combustion engine. The system is a full hybrid, which means that it can run on electricity alone, combine both power units or use the internal combustion engine alone. The system uses a consumer version of the kinetic energy regeneration system (KERS) used in motorsport to recharge the batteries during normal driving. The owner can also plug the vehicle in to charge the batteries, giving the vehicle a longer electric-only driving range.
