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At Chery’s sprawling HQ in the city of Wuhu, two hours west of Shanghai, dozens of prototypes circle the streets linking the company’s various R&D facilities. 

In one prototype jam, we spot a camouflaged Lepas with Audi’s four rings crudely drawn on tape covering the badge. 

The marking was clearly a joke, but it was also a sign of Chery’s sky-high confidence that it can conjure up a new export brand, launch it globally, including in the UK, within a year and quickly establish it as a serious contender.

Lepas was launched at an event in Wuhu in April, where we learned that the SUV line-up would use the same T1X platform as its Omoda, Jaecoo and Chery brands offering electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants.

Given Chery already has bold plans to expand sales of SUVs from those brands in the UK and mainland Europe, the crowd of dealers, media and influencers were left to wonder what niche was left for Lepas to fill.

Chinese car companies are famous for their willingness to conjure up new brands in reaction to shifting trends and counter stalling growth from older brands.

Lepas (portmanteau of leopard and passion) was born partly for that reason, according to Zhang Guibing, president of Chery International. 

But in a sign of China’s increased sophistication when it comes to automotive marketing, Zhang made a credible case for the separation using a slide titled 'Too many brands?'. 

Lepas essentially takes the smaller SUVs from the Chery Tiggo range, tightens the curved look, adds a new cat-eye driving-light signature and aims the brand at ‘modern families’. 

Future Tiggos will be given a chunkier look targeted at more traditional family buyers, with Omoda steered in a more edgy, modern direction, as revealed by the new Omoda 3 coming next year. Jaecoo sits more upmarket with a style Chery calls ‘British Gentleman’.

“By offering different brands on the same platform, the volume is very big and that gives us a good price,” Zhang said.

They didn’t say it, but in a brand head to head with the Volkswagen Group, Tiggo could be equated to Skoda, Lepas to VW and Omoda to Cupra, with Jaecoo tackling the lower reaches of Audi using a styling wardrobe borrowed from Range Rover. 

Chery has plenty of exposure to the style and appeal of Land Rover products thanks to its joint venture with JLR in China.

The future Lepas range could be tailor-made for the UK, given our enduring fondness for small- and medium-sized SUVs and growing demand for electrified models. 

The brand's launch models – the L4 and L6 compact SUVs – will be offered with electric, PHEV or combustion drivetrains, with the L2 small SUV following later as an EV. 

Chery is negotiating for Lepas models to be built in a VW plant in Germany, Automotive News Europe recently reported. The plan is likely to be similar to that of Chery’s takeover of the old Nissan plant in Barcelona, where it finishes off half-built Tiggos rebranded as Ebros for the Spanish market.

We’ve seen Chinese brands launch and then wither in the UK before – for example, GWM’s Ora brand. However, Chery’s ambition is on another level and therefore harder to bet against. Omoda and Jaecoo combined hit 8392 sales in the UK over the first four months of the year with just one model apiece, according to SMMT data.

Between them, they beat Seat, Suzuki, Citroën, Lexus and Jeep and Fiat over the same timeframe. The Jaecoo 7 was the UK’s sixth best-selling PHEV across that period.

Lepas is aiming to enter 27 markets globally this year, operating from 400 showrooms. The year after, the plan is for 45 markets with 850 showrooms, before reaching 89 markets with more than 1200 showrooms in 2027. By that point, Chery hopes to be selling 500,000 cars annually.

The UK launch plan is for early 2026, according to UK dealers we spoke to, and greater commitment is expected from them compared with current obligations for the combined Omoda/Jaecoo showrooms. 

The race to get to just under 80 Omoda/Jaecoo outlets of across the UK as of now – with 120 planned by the end of the year – has been achievable thanks to minimal corporate identity requirements. This has enabled dealers to quickly switch showrooms from underperforming brands (mainly owned by Stellantis) to Omoda/Jaecoo. Lepas, however, will require stand-alone dealerships with a higher standard of corporate identity.

The appeal to dealers and customers is the Chinese promise of the latest technology, high levels of standard equipment and the widest choice of drivetrains at a price that undercuts the competition. The Omoda 5 compact SUV, for example, currently starts at £25,915, compared with £30,615 for the entry Nissan Qashqai. 

Given there’s very little brand recognition for any Chery-owned marque right now, adding another is no big gamble. Along with Lepas, some of the Tiggo range of SUVs is also coming to the UK, starting with the Tiggo 7 compact PHEV due in October, Chery said. Also arriving is the iCar (rebadged iCaur) range of electrified off-roaders.

Chery’s recent export expansion programme has been financed partly off the back of its recent success in Russia, where it displaced exiting Western car firms and now vies with Great Wall for the title of second largest automotive company there, after Lada. 

Chery has long been China’s biggest exporter of cars, but now with Lepas to add to its growing stable of brands, it believes it has the technology, platform, quality and cost-competitiveness to displace incumbents – and Toyota and Hyundai are its two biggest targets.

Toyota has given the Aygo X an aggressive new look and a hybrid powertrain that is claimed to emit the least CO2 of any non-plug-in car in Europe.

The brand’s smallest and most affordable car has adopted the same 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol-electric hybrid powertrain that is used in the larger Yaris, sending up to 114bhp through the front wheels. 

This is enough to send the Aygo X from 0-62mph in less than 10sec – a significant improvement on the previous 14.9sec. And, product manager Cesar Romero told Autocar, it will yield fuel efficiency in excess of 74mpg, pending official WLTP testing.

The existing 71bhp 1.0-litre three-pot, which traces its lineage back to the original Aygo of two decades ago, is being removed from the line-up, and the option of a manual gearbox goes with it; the Aygo X is now fitted with the Yaris’s CVT-like epicyclic automatic as standard.

In addition to the much-improved performance of the hybrid, two key motivators for the older lump’s removal from the line-up are the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate and fleet CO2 emissions targets.

The ZEV mandate contains a provision that allows car manufacturers to convert reductions in their total CO2 outputs into de facto ‘sales’ of electric cars, giving them extra flexibility to meet EV sales targets.

Every 167g/km of CO2 cut from a firm’s total output in any given year can be converted into one ZEV ‘sale’, meaning they have to sell one less electric car to meet compliance targets – or they can sell an extra petrol, diesel or hybrid car within their limit.

This is particularly relevant for the Aygo. It is one of Toyota’s best-selling models in the UK, and the new hybrid system emits significantly less CO2 than the previous petrol engine. It’s rated at 86g/km, a reduction of 23g. For reference, the rival MG 3 Hybrid+ emits 100g/km.

Autocar understands that Toyota sold some 14,000 examples of the city car in the UK last year. Had those all been the new hybrid, Toyota would have been able to sell in excess of 2000 additional ICE cars while remaining within its limit.

Separately from the ZEV mandate, such a significant reduction would have given Toyota crucial leeway in its fleet emissions targets: it would have offset the total output of nearly 1600 GR Yarises (rated at 215g/km) or 1400 Land Cruisers (240g/km).

The uprated powertrain will, however, bring an increase in cost. Toyota has yet to confirm numbers, but Romero said: "What we're targeting is, especially on a monthly payment, the total cost of ownership. Fuel consumption of the vehicle will be much lower than for the current car, thanks to the hybrid powertrain. We expect the step [in overall costs] not to be so big."

For reference, the current pure-petrol Aygo X starts at £16,485, while the Yaris opens at £23,445.

Inside, the new Aygo X features a series of subtle changes. The outgoing car’s analogue speedometer and rev counter are swapped for a small digital instrument screen, and there is now a pair of USB-C ports below the climate control panel.

An infrared sensor is now mounted on the steering rack (for the EU-mandated driver attention monitoring system) and there are updated buttons on the steering wheel for the speed limit-warning and lane-keeping systems. 

Toyota has also added more sound deadening around the dashboard and under the bonnet, and the exhaust has been reworked to improve refinement. 

Higher trim levels will get yet more soundproofing and thicker window glass. The first examples of the new Aygo X are due in the UK early next year.

New GR Sport trim brings warm-hatch appeal

The new GR Sport trim (pictured above) aims to imbue the sensible Aygo X with more dynamic appeal, bringing with it a stiffer chassis and quicker steering.

A full-fat GR model isn’t planned, however; Toyota says the new hybrid powertrain’s 114bhp – yielding a power-to-weight ratio similar to that of the old VW Up GTI and Fiat Panda 100HP – is sufficient to make it fun to drive.