Chinese car company Chery to enter Romanian market in July

The Chinese car company with the largest international presence, Chery, will officially begin selling cars on the Romanian market this year, Profit.ro reported. Its local catalog is to include the Tiggo 8 SUV, the first model officially approved in the European Union, which will soon be followed by two other SUVs, Tiggo 7 and the smallest in the range, Tiggo 4, which will also be the most affordable.

The Tiggo 8 is a mid-size SUV, with a length of 4.72 meters, and also offers an optional 7-seat version. The cost in non-EU countries is about EUR 30,000. In Europe, it will also be launched with a PHEV engine, which will be much more expensive than the gasoline version.

The Chery Group has already entered Europe with two other brands, Omoda and Jaecoo, both offering only fully electric engines. Sales so far, affected by customs tariffs, have not been encouraging.

In 2024, Omoda sold approximately 15,000 vehicles in Europe, and Jaecoo reached around 2,500 units delivered.

“Chery aims to enter the Romanian market in July, with the Chery brand, not with Omoda and Jaecoo,” Lexi Xu, Brand Manager of Chery International for the Romanian market, told Profit.ro.

Unlike other Chinese manufacturers, Chery continues to produce and sell combustion engine cars under the company’s main brand, which could be an advantage at this time, both due to the customs tariffs applied to electric vehicle imports into the EU, which do not apply to combustion engines, and due to demand.

Currently, any vehicle produced in China owes a 10% tax in the country when it enters EU territory, but the taxes are generally applied to the invoicing prices of the importer, which are much lower than the retail prices in the dealer network.

The Chery brand is already present in Turkey, Serbia, and Ukraine. The Tiggo 4, the cheapest model, is sold in these markets with prices starting from approximately EUR 18,000, a level that should also be displayed by dealers in Romania.

Chery representatives have stated that they are considering building a plant in Eastern Europe, but have never named the country in which they would like to invest.

Several Romanian companies specialized in car sales are already in negotiations with Chery to sign representation contracts in the main localities of Romania.

Chery, a state-owned company, is the largest car exporter in China, with a volume of 1.14 million vehicles exported last year, in 2024, nearly half of the company’s global sales. The exported volume was almost three times greater than BYD’s exports and more than double that of Geely, also surpassing rivals from SAIC (MG).