Chery is on a roll in South Africa, having recently broken into the top 10 best-selling automotive brands in January with more than 1,400 units sold.
The Chinese automaker has seen a meteoric rise in the charts since it first re-opened its doors here in 2021, and it clearly has no intention of slowing down anytime soon as at least four new cars are planned for an introduction before the end of the year.
Big plans for 2024
Chery’s plans for the next 12 months will see four cars launched in South Africa, with two arriving in the near future while the others will debut just before the end of the year.
The first wave of new entries will be additions to the Tiggo 7 Pro Max and Tiggo 8 Pro Max families, with the latter arriving in March while the former will appear “shortly thereafter,” said the company.
The “Max” subset of vehicles is the brand’s designation for its range-topping versions of its various products, though each Max series consists of several models of its own.
Both the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 already have Max versions, but the automaker is expanding on these offerings as they are among its most popular options and are responsible for a significant portion of the brand’s monthly sales figures.
The Tiggo 7 Pro portfolio, which comprises three Max variants that launched in October last year, will therefore soon be made more attainable by the addition of a new entry-level model.
It will have the same drivetrain as its siblings, giving it a 1.6-litre, turbo-petrol plant with 145kW and 290Nm, and it will be front-wheel drive (FWD), as all-wheel drive (AWD) is reserved for the flagship model.
The cheapest Tiggo 7 Pro Max currently goes for R529,900, while the standard Tiggo 7 Pro Executive starts at R477,900, so the newcomer will likely fall somewhere between these two values.
As for the Tiggo 8 Pro, it only has a single FWD Max model, so the latest addition will be an AWD flagship that carries the same 2.0-litre turbo-petrol mill with 187kW and 390Nm.
The FWD Tiggo 8 Pro Max starts at R669,900, so expect the AWD version to be priced north of this sum.
The other two models earmarked for South Africa in 2024 will be plug-in hybrid (PHEV) versions of the Tiggo 7 Pro and Tiggo 8 Pro, showing that the company is doubling down on the success of these two vehicles.
These will be coming much later in the year, so there is not as much information about what the local market can expect yet.
However, the PHEV Tiggo 8 is already on sale in other countries like the Philippines, which can give a first impression of what we will receive.
The foreign Chery uses a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine along with an electric motor over each axle, generating a combined 338kW and 510Nm.
The electric components are powered by a 19.27kWh battery, which allows the SUV to travel for 75km before needing to be charged – a process that takes three hours.
Unfortunately, there have been no recent announcements for the more affordable Tiggo 4 Pro, and these new Tiggo 7 and 8 units are all geared towards the higher end of the price spectrum, but the one bit of good news for price-conscious consumers is that Chery is investigating the feasibility of launching the Tiggo 2 Pro in South Africa.
The earliest date for this would be in 2025, but the new car would function as an entry-level vehicle slotting below the Tiggo 4, which is already reasonably affordable by today’s price standards with a starting tag of R279,900, making the Tiggo 2 a likely competitor to the two best-sellers in the segment – the Nissan Magnite and Renault Kiger.
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