Jaecoo launches new premium SUV in Australia
China has been muscling in on the global EV industry for years but a new move highlights how big it’s going to get.
A new car brand launching in Australia was once cause for front page news and fanfare.
But recently, new marques have been arriving on our shores faster than students to a free bar.
Latest arrival is Jaecoo, the self-proclaimed “premium SUV” brand from Chinese budget giant Chery.
Chery only relaunched locally in 2023 (after selling cheap nasties here from 2011 to 2014), yet now asks us to accept Jaecoo and, later this year, Omoda as a separate brand too.
What on earth is going on?
China, that’s what. The country has ambitions for global automotive supremacy (including Australia), with EVs proving a key battleground.
In 2023, China produced more cars (over 30 million) than the US, Japan, South Korea and Germany combined. That same year it became the globe’s largest car exporter for the first time.
It can’t be overlooked that much of that growth has come from China selling cars to Russia – over one million in 2024 – when everyone else withdrew over its invasion of Ukraine.
In Australia, recent or soon-arriving new players include Chery, Deepal, Denza, Foton, GAC Aion, Geely, IM Motors, JAC, Leapmotor, Skywell, Smart, XPeng and Zeekr. It’s mind scrambling.
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Last year, Chinese-owned MG was our seventh biggest selling brand, while GWM was tenth. BYD and Chery saw huge growth in 2024, with both targeting a top ten place.
Chery could have helped its standing by selling all its products under the same badge, instead of launching these Jaecoo and Omoda divisions.
“It seems a little bit strange having so many different brands, but for us the strategy definitely works,” said Peter Matkin, Chery’s chief engineer.
“Globally, as we launch these brands, they’re all doing really well in every market. Chery has been the number one export seller from China to global markets for 21 years straight.”
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While Chery remains the budget choice with its Tiggo 4 Pro costing $23,990 drive-away, Jaecoo launches with the J7 medium SUV from a not-premium-priced $34,990 on the road. That’s some $10,000 cheaper than the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid best-seller.
A plug-in J7 with 90km EV range – the SHS Summit – is $47,990 drive-away, and aimed squarely at the BYD Sealion 6 PHEV (from $48,990) and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (from $57,290).
The Jaecoo name? It’s a blend of Jaeger (German for hunter) and Cool, so basically Cool Hunter.
Quite cringe, as the kids would say, but not as much as fellow Chinese newbie Zeekr, which combines the “Z” from Generation Z and “Geek”. Build Your Dreams (BYD) even sounds tolerable by comparison.
We’re promised “30 to 40” dealerships across Australia by the May on-sale date, with Omoda/Jaecoo having separate retail spaces to Chery.
Jaecoo offers an eight-year unlimited-kilometre warranty and the J7 will be followed by a seven-seat J8 SUV in coming months. And there’s more. “There’s pretty much everything coming, without giving too much away,” Matkin explained.
Also on the table is Chery’s Exlantix luxury EV brand, known as Exceed in China, to sit above Jaecoo. Try to keep up, class.
Omoda – Chery’s “youth-orientated lifestyle brand” plans more cars for Australia in 2025, with the C9 large SUV and mid-size C7 plug-in hybrid on the maybe lists.
Meanwhile Chery’s onslaught includes the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 9 plug-in SUVs, and a hybrid version of the little Tiggo 4 SUV.
MORE: Fresh ute rivals on the way from China
“We’ll take whatever the market requires, as we’ve got to balance out our CO2 emissions,” said Chery’s chief commercial officer, Roy Munoz, addressing Australia’s increasingly strict emissions standards.
But is it all too saturated? Not just by Chery and its offshoot brands, but by a seemingly endless array of box fresh Chinese rivals landing?
Most industry experts believe it’s not sustainable, and it’s impossible to imagine all these new brands surviving in our relatively small marketplace.
Having a point of difference is key, and Peter Matkin insists Jaecoo has staying power due to its “higher premium levels” versus rivals.
“Our customers we call the new elites,” he explained. “They’re a generation of educated, sophisticated young go-getters.”
The Australian car market has never known a time like this, but do we really want or need 80 unique brands to choose from?
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