Jaecoo's UK boss reveals how £29,000 SUV is wooing the Range Rover set

It's not quite parking your tanks on a rival's lawn. But by opening its head office in affluent Chiswick, West London, it seems as if Chinese car giant Chery is challenging Range Rover on its home turf.

The firm, which came to the UK less than two years ago, is competing for the so-called 'Chelsea tractor' brigade with its sports utility vehicle, or SUV, the Jaecoo 7.

It seemingly came from nowhere to become Britain's best-selling car last month, with more than 10,000 rolling on to UK roads.

The sales figures will be welcomed by Chery's UK boss, Gary Lan, who after spending years selling US-made vehicles in China is trying a similar trick in reverse, convincing British motorists that his firm's cheaper cars are just as good as their established rivals.

At a starting price of about £29,000 against £55,000 for a Range Rover Velar, to which it is often compared, and with a cost-of-living crisis in full swing, it's unlikely to be a hard sell. The rapid growth in sales is also forcing the company to expand its UK workforce.

In the driving seat: Chery's UK boss, Gary Lan is competing for the so-called 'Chelsea tractor' brigade

I meet the chief executive in its newly-minted office space in West London that will house most of Chery's 150 British employees. When he joined in January last year the firm had fewer than 40 staff.

Despite the soaring sales, Lan tells me that moving into the British market hasn't been an easy ride, with the firm having to adjust its cars to make them more in tune with UK driving culture.

It has tweaked its driver assistance system – offering features such as automatic emergency braking and detectors to keep the car in lane – to be less 'sensitive' as it was taking the 'fun out of driving' for some customers.

'The system was interfering with their driving pleasure so we had to do some engineering to make our vehicles more "British",' Lan says.

'We had some customers telling us our cars were too safe,' he laughs, although a press officer swiftly interjects to tell me the changes haven't included any downgrades in safety standards.

Other changes have included alterations to account for Britons 'smaller' driveways, and programming on how to handle roundabouts, which Lan describes as a 'signature' of the UK road system.

When the Jaecoo brand was launched in the UK in January last year, it was dubbed the 'Temu Range Rover' on social media, in reference to its Chinese origins, cheaper price tag, and a striking resemblance to the British icon.

But the moniker appears to have been a boon rather than a hindrance with the Jaecoo 7 in line to become the best-selling car of 2026, beating its British, European, American, Korean and Japanese rivals, which have been in the market for much longer.

A key selling point, Lan says, is that Chery has packed its cars with as much technology as its more expensive competitors have – in a bid to give drivers a luxury feeling for a lower cost.

Remarkable rise

Topping the March sales rankings is a milestone in the remarkable rise of Chery, which arrived in Britain in August 2024 with the launch of the Omoda 5 SUV.

The Jaecoo range was next, and it was followed with the own-brand Chery range, launched in September last year.

Earlier this year the company enlisted former England footballer Peter Crouch and his wife, model Abbey Clancy, in an ad campaign for its flagship Chery Tiggo 9 SUV to bolster its spacious, family-friendly credentials.

Another of the firm's brands, Lepas – whose name is a mash-up of the words 'leopard', 'leap' and 'passion' – is scheduled to be launched in Britain later this year.

The rise of Chery – pronounced like the fruit of the same name – is part of a wider surge in sales of Chinese cars in the UK.

Last year, the Chinese captured 10 per cent of the new car market, selling 200,000 vehicles, with the AutoTrader website forecasting that this would grow to 15 per cent this year and 20 per cent in 2027.

But while Chery's UK success appears to be out of the blue, Lan says it took more than two decades of preparation. He says: 'The British market is very sophisticated and has high regulation, so we needed to make sure we were fully ready before coming here.'

Lan likens the UK to a 'fitness centre' for the business to prove its quality and safety standards, with a British stamp of approval seen as a major endorsement to help it expand to other countries.

'When you are a new brand, people worry about your quality, if your vehicle will fall apart and if it is safe,' he says. 'The UK is a good place for our company to learn how to adapt to new markets.'

Once that technology of faster charging comes together with more stations, more people will see an electric vehicle as a better choice than they do today

Lan is better placed than most to straddle the divide between a Chinese vehicle maker and Western customers, given he has done the opposite throughout his career. Originally from Taiwan, he began his career at Japanese brand Mazda before taking on a succession of roles at Ford in Asia. Before joining Chery, he was vice president of sales for the Chinese arm of US car maker Lincoln.

Chery is not the only Chinese brand looking to overtake Western car brands in their own backyard.

Last month its rival BYD, which was launched in the UK in 2023, unveiled a superfast system that it claimed could almost fully charge a car's battery in as little as five minutes – far quicker than major rivals such as Elon Musk's Tesla.

Chery is also hoping to cash in on the UK's drive to Net Zero, with Lan noting that 60 per cent of the company's sales are hybrids compared with 25 per cent petrol. But just 15 per cent fully electric.

The latter category is expected to expand in coming years as more charging stations appear on UK roads, though the company has no immediate plans to make its own charging points like BYD.

Lan says: 'Once that technology of faster charging comes together with more stations, more people will see an electric vehicle as a better choice than they do today.'

I ask him if the company would ever open a factory in the UK to help boost Britain's struggling automotive industry, which in recent years has been battered by a cocktail of rising costs, US tariffs and other disruptions, including a cyber attack that hit Range Rover maker JLR last year.

Could a Chinese car really top the sales charts in 2026?

'If we reach a certain scale, then UK production will make a lot of sense,' he says. 'That's been in our mind before we decided to enter the market.'

However, Lan will not be drawn on a timeline for when a Chery factory could open in Britain.

The firm also faces growing fears that Chinese-made cars could be used by Beijing for espionage after a tracking device was found in a UK Government car in 2023. This led the Ministry of Defence to warn staff not to discuss sensitive information in vehicles that may have Chinese software in them.

Chery is a public company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a value of nearly £18 billion, but its biggest shareholder is the Anhui province, where the company's head office is located.

Lan rebuffs suggestions that the company's vehicles could be used for nefarious purposes, saying the UK market is too big an opportunity for the firm to put at risk.

'It would not be a good move for us,' he says. 'It has taken us many years to get here.'