Chery’s newest brand says it has no rivals in Australia

Newcomer brand Lepas is rolling out a lineup of small, medium and large SUVs plus a small hatchback, but it says it has no real competition in Australia.

“I don't think Lepas has any real comparable brands currently in the market. It's a huge white space there, and so what I hope's being traded in as a bunch of really boring black and white cars,” Chery Motor Australia chief operating officer Lucas Harris told CarExpert when asked what brands' vehicles he expects Lepas buyers to be trading in.

“Because people finally feel like they can break free from that beige conformity. And finally, they can have a car that actually looks interesting and, you know, comes in a nice, bright colour. Because everybody seems to only offer shades of grey and the occasional blue if you're lucky.”

Lepas says it has drawn design inspiration from leopards – indeed, its name is a portmanteau of 'leopard' and 'passion' – and this can be seen in the haunches of the L6 EV mid-size SUV that'll debut the brand here in October, and in the LED daytime running lights of all its models.

Chery's global design director Steve Eum says he was also drawn from a range of other influences for the L6 EV, including, varyingly, porcelain, pebbles, waves, ballerinas and high-end fashion.

The company hasn’t released its local paint colour palette, but it showed media in Sydney the L6 EV electric SUV in a distinctive light purple, plus its plug-in hybrid (PHEV) counterpart in a lurid orange.

However, these were parked alongside a matte-grey example of the larger mid-size L8 SUV, and a solid white version of the small L4 EV electric SUV. Both were said to be pre-production vehicles, but nevertheless Lepas vehicles will also be offered in plainer colours.

But while the L6 EV will give the Chery Group its first mid-size electric SUV on the Australian market, its PHEV sibling will face internal competition from the Chery Tiggo 7 and Jaecoo J7, while the L4 will go up against the Chery E5 and Jaecoo J5, and the L8 against the Chery Tiggo 8.

“I get that question quite frequently around confusing customers. And I really think that the general intelligence of consumers is being underestimated. I don't think they're stupid. And if the product is as different as it is and the brand image and the way the brand presents is as different as it is, how could they be confused?

“I think we're not giving people enough credit.”

When asked what happens if Lepas cannibalises sales from other Chery brands, Mr Harris replied: “What an awesome problem to have that so many people want to buy one of your cars.

“I mean, it'd be great if we had two brands and such demand that they competed with each other.

“Ultimately, we're not so silly as to think that all customers are going to fit squarely into four boxes or five boxes, right? There's going to be some overlap between them.”

Mr Harris made clear that Lepas isn’t being positioned as a more premium brand than Chery and Omoda Jaecoo, but rather that it’s appealing to a different, more individualistic type of buyer – people it calls “vibrant expressionists” who primarily live in metropolitan areas and are aged between 25 and 59, with a 55 per cent female skew.

“You know, I really hate the word premium because I just feel like it's lazy, to be honest with you. It's difficult, because I don't know what a good alternative word is,” said Mr Harris.

“It's not about trying to create ‘Is this brand more premium than the other?’. It’s ‘Which customers can this brand talk to?’. That’s more important than stacking them on top of each other or trying to make one more premium than the other.

“And so the intent is, how do we find customers that have refined but specific tastes. And they're choiceful about what they wear and where they eat out and where they live, what music they listen to… Very purposeful and choiceful in those things, and a bit individualistic because of it. How do we then offer those customers a product?

“Colour is one way, so if you want people to be bright, then we'll give them those options. There'll be more subdued colours available as well.”

When asked if Lepas will discontinue its vibrant colours if they don’t prove popular, Mr Harris confirmed they’ll be here to stay.

“It's part of the brand’s identity, right? So if people want beige, there's lots of options for that. If they want bold and distinctive, that's Lepas," he said.

“So Lepas’ job is not to sell a car to every single home in Australia. It's to offer an option to that subset of people that right now don't really have a great deal of options.”

But as for how many vehicles Lepas will sell here, the company wouldn’t provide an answer.

“The numbers I give are always wrong. They're either too high or too low. So I just won't give you one,” said Mr Harris.

“The guide would be that, obviously, we're not going to all the effort of bringing the brand here not to sell any vehicles. But at the same time, we acknowledge that the audience and the target market that we're going after is a lot smaller than Chery, so we don't think it's going to sell the same volume as what the Chery brand is, but that's why we have the Chery brand, right?

“This is to find that more niche audience.”

To that end, Mr Harris wouldn’t confirm where he expects Lepas to place in the sales charts. Last year, he said he wanted Chery to become a top-five brand in Australia by 2027, and for Omoda Jaecoo to finish in the top 10.

“If you look at how much of the total market’s volume sits in the top 10 or the top 20 today, 18 months ago it was quite different and 18 months from now it could be quite different,” said Mr Harris.

“With so many brands coming to Australia, how much of that volume is going to be diluted? Where – I’m just throwing an arbitrary number out there – 70 per cent of the volume sitting in the top 10 might turn to 40 per cent of the volume sitting in the top 10.”

Indeed, if there is the kind of overlap of buyers that Mr Harris concedes may be the case, Lepas could siphon sales away from Chery and Omoda Jaecoo.

The Chery Group will have three more brands coming to Australia in 2027, though this trio – comprising iCaur, Jetour and Freelander – will offer vehicles with a very different look to Lepas and therefore presumably appeal to different buyers.

“The automotive market just sprung up in the last, what, 30 years for China, right? And it's super-fast. And again, this whole China speed that's happening. And this momentum, that's happening with Chery in terms of all these brands,” said Mr Eum.

“Chery initially has gone through a lot of brands before and some of them of course survived and some haven’t.

“[Chery is] just a super-fluid organisation. So, whether we have 10 or 20 brands, it really doesn't matter. They'll juggle.”

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