Europe ahead: Chery’s plans – WELT

Posted on January 3, 2024 | Reading time: 5 minutes

SPX/Wuhu/China. The first minute has something scary. Anyone entering the so-called giant factory of Chinese carmaker Chery at its headquarters in Wuhu is unlikely to see a soul past the gatekeeper. Outside you look in vain for the staff parking spaces and large staff housing buildings that are common in China, and inside you see only hallways with one worker passing by every fifteen minutes. And it’s not really because there’s nothing to do here. After all, a new car rolls off the production line here every minute and Chery keeps an annual capacity of 300,000 assembled and another 200,000 ready for other plants.

This is due to an unprecedented high level of automation: “98 percent of all work here is done by robots and machines,” says Zhang Guibing, as industrial trucks move freely along the route as if controlled by magic, ensuring material flow for assembly robots.

Zhang Guibing is the boss of Chery International and he wants to make sure that only 662 robots and 2,000 workers, mainly employed in final assembly and quality assurance, will soon have more work to do. To maintain Chery’s double-digit growth rates, the company is now entering Europe and wants to start in the old world with three brands and, in the medium term, around a dozen models.

This ship is fundamentally different from that of many other foreigners from China. Because unlike BYD, Ora or XiPeng, Chery does not allow itself to be carried away by the joy of electricity, but remains faithful to the combustion engine: The future may be of the electric motor, admits the chief strategist Zhu Shaodong. But the future has not yet started everywhere and because many people not only want to have a phone tomorrow, but also want to drive a car today, he remains faithful to the combustion engine; “The first cars in Europe will be conventional gasoline engines,” says Zhu, even if they are quickly followed by plug-in hybrids and pure electric models.

Going abroad is nothing new for the Chinese. The company, founded in 1997 in Wuhan, a five-hour drive northwest of Shanghai, exported its first car to Syria in 2001, is now present in 80 countries, mainly in Asia, South America, Africa and Arabia, and exports cars more out. of the country than any other manufacturer in China : In the first half of 2023, the share of exports was more than 50 percent for the first time. With a volume of 1.2 million vehicles last year and a forecast of 2.0 million this year, there is a lot coming along.

Until now, they have gone almost exclusively to emerging countries, but now they face the first fully developed market, saturated in Europe, they have to face established competitors and seek salvation in migration. “We feel like elementary school students and we are starting from scratch,” says Zhang Guibing humbly. They want to learn about everything from the Asians and they set big goals for themselves: “It took the Japanese 20 years, the Koreans ten, we want to be fast and soon reach the sales level of Hyundai and Kia,” says his strategy boss Zhu. as a goal. And unlike Nio & Co., they don’t want to turn the system on its head, but instead stick to the usual rules, says Zhu. This applies especially to sales. A website instead of a showroom? Flat rate instead of purchase price? Others should try something like this: “We rely on a common network of suppliers and the knowledge of local partners.”

In and around their huge factory at their headquarters, the Chinese have integrated everything they need for the construction of cars: not only are there pushers and pedals, assembly and painting, but engines and transmissions are also built here on site. And a stone’s throw away is a large development and one of the largest test centers in the whole of Asia: Of course, there are climate chambers and EMC test benches everywhere and there are also rams shaking for protection torture of NVH (noise). , vibration, intensity). But nobody has a crash hall like us, says owner Wuhai Zhong about the safety center that opened in 2010. 1,000 engineers work here alone, driving 300 to 400 cars into the wall or into each other every year on the 100-meter-long crash course. 260 meters with radial collision paths. Not counting the many sled tests and features. The international ambitions of the Chinese are also reflected here in the hall, and not only because the flags of all countries hang from the ceiling: “We can do any crash test needed anywhere in the world here,” says Wuhai proudly.

Chery is currently building one big factory after another in China and opened the next one in Qingdao a few weeks ago – right at the port, of course, which is especially smart for an export dealer. But that does not mean that Chery would not also look abroad. That is why they already have ten assembly plants in Africa, Asia and South America, and have been looking for Europe for a long time, says Foreign Minister Zhang: “If we seriously consider our European mission and our growth plans work. then there should be no shortage of capacity.”