The Chinese challenge to the British car market will be stepped up this month when Changan, one of the largest automotive groups in the People’s Republic, launches an electric vehicle in the UK to take on Tesla’s bestselling Model Y.
The state-backed Changan, based in the central city of Chongqing, produces 3 million cars a year, making it about two thirds the size of the country’s market leader, BYD.
Changan executives have bold ambitions to be a top-ten player in the UK with 5 per cent of the market and 100,000 units sold a year. Its arrival comes with the tantalising prospect that it is committed to opening a factory in Europe — and Britain may be on the shortlist.
The all-electric Deepal S07, launching in Britain on September 16, has been engineered in the company’s powertrain centre of excellence in Birmingham, a research and development centre staffed by former Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Ford and Honda engineers.
Priced at £39,990 — at least £5,000 cheaper than the Model Y — the S07 will go on sale at the brand’s first dealership near Fort Dunlop in Birmingham. Nearby, production lines at JLR, which is also based in the West Midlands, have ground to a halt, with workers asked to stay home after a cyberattack.
Changan hopes to have 45 showrooms by the end of the year. The S07 is the first of six models it intends to bring to the UK.
The slightly smaller Deepal S05, set to compete with the Nissan Qashqai, one of Britain’s bestselling vehicles, will arrive early next year with a price tag of around £35,000, similarly aimed at undercutting the incumbents.
The other four cars are all incrementally smaller hybrid or all-electric models. Changan is ultimately targeting the hatchback market dominated by Ford, previously with the Fiesta and now the Puma.
Changan, unlike other leading Chinese multinationals such as BYD and Geely, is owned and controlled by the Chinese state. It was originally part of the Chinese defence sector and built vehicles for the military.
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The launch in Britain is significant as it becomes Changan’s second European market after Norway, a nation of early adopters where nine in ten new cars sold are all-electric.
“Britain is an open and accessible and accepting market for electric cars,” said Nic Thomas, Changan’s UK marketing chief, who previously had a similar role at Nissan. “This is a natural base for us.”
British motorists want “affordable and attractive” electric cars, Thomas said. He believes Changan has a head start on other Chinese brands because of its existing UK presence.
On the prospect of Changan making an even bigger commitment to the UK by considering the country as a manufacturing base, Thomas said that was a decision to be made by executives based on cost efficiencies and supply chains. However, he added that thanks to its Birmingham hub, Changan is fully aware of the “pool of talent available” and recognises the UK as a centre of excellence.
He said the company has utilised the technical centre to recalibrate the Deepal models’ software and engineering for British roads, which tend to be narrower and twistier than most. The base is also being used to to train dealerships and service engineers, so that customers will get the support that perhaps they cannot get from other Chinese brands.