Chery Aims to Establish a Production and Design Center in the UK

Chery sees the UK not just as a sales market, but as its new home for creating a British brand to be sold to the world.
Chery sees the UK not just as a sales market, but as its new home for creating a British brand to be sold to the world.

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Chery no longer sees the UK merely as a sales market: The chairman of the Chinese manufacturer, Yin Tongyue, announced that he wants the brand's vehicles to be designed, engineered and produced in the UK - in short, to become a British brand sold around the world. The first concrete steps of this goal are emerging as a research center to open in Bedfordshire and possible contract manufacturing in Sunderland, while the company's long-standing partnership with JLR also stands as an integral part of the strategy.

Highlights

  • The plan to move the Chery Design Center to the UK is on the agenda, along with an R&D center to open at Millbrook by the end of autumn 2026
  • A memorandum of understanding signed with Nissan examines the possibility of contract manufacturing in Sunderland from 2027 onward
  • The Chery group has surpassed the 100,000 registrations threshold in the UK; it sold 53,600 vehicles in 2025
  • British car production declined to 764,715 units in 2025, falling to its lowest level since 1952
  • The Chery Jaguar Land Rover joint venture has been running since 2012; the Freelander brand was revived

What Does Yin Tongyue's 'British Brand' Vision Mean?

The goal voiced by Yin Tongyue clearly sums up the turning point in Chery's UK strategy: the company wants to design, engineer and manufacture its products here and sell them worldwide. For someone who has been following this industry for more than thirty years, this is not an unusual situation; Japanese and Korean manufacturers followed a similar path. But Chery's discourse is remarkable in that it comes from a brand with only a few years of history in the market.

The message from the management team of Chery International UK is along the same lines: The company emphasizes that it waited more than twenty years to enter this market and that its aim goes far beyond simply selling vehicles. It is also noted that local talent is becoming increasingly important. In practice, this means not just opening an office; it means moving part of the design, calibration and manufacturing decisions to the UK.

The company's position in the market is well suited to carrying this claim. The Chery group has passed the 100,000 registrations mark in the UK; the group, which sold 53,600 vehicles in 2025, has gained momentum and is expected to exceed that figure in 2026. The Omoda and Jaecoo brands raised their share from roughly 3 percent of the market a year earlier to about 8 percent in July 2026. The fourth brand, Lepas, was also introduced in February 2026; meaning Chery is now talked about in the UK with four brands at once.

It used to take years for a Chinese brand to make a name for itself in Europe; now that process has visibly accelerated. Chinese brands reached 15-16 percent of the UK new car market in the first half of 2026. The Jaecoo 7 becoming the UK's best-selling model in March 2026 and ranking third in the January-June period is the most concrete evidence of how quickly the market is changing.

Millbrook R&D Center: Moving Design and Engineering to the UK

Millbrook'un 70 kilometrelik test pistlerinde önce İngiliz yollarına uyum sağlayacak araçlar, sonra da küresel portföye taşınacak teknolojiler doğacak.

The technical leg of the strategy is being established in Bedfordshire. Chery is opening a new R&D center at the UTAC Millbrook Proving Ground, located about 8 miles south of Bedford; the facility is expected to enter service by the end of autumn 2026. Millbrook is a well-established facility with more than 70 purpose-built test tracks, also used by motorsport companies and the Ministry of Defence; known for its challenging courses such as the Hill Route and Alpine Circuit, this environment is one of the UK's most experienced venues for vehicle development.

The center's initial focus will be calibration to UK road conditions, chassis dynamics, and the tuning of driver assistance systems (ADAS). In the next phase, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence topics are planned to come to the agenda. So initially, the facility will be about vehicles getting accustomed to British roads; later, the goal is to transfer technologies developed in this country to the global portfolio.

There is a similar move on the design side as well: the relocation of the Chery Design Center to the UK is on the agenda. Bringing two of the three fundamental components of product development - design and engineering - to this country is a concrete sign of the will behind the vision voiced by Yin Tongyue. However, the company has not yet disclosed how much it will invest in this facility or how many people it will employ, which is a clear sign that the plan is still at an early stage.

The Nissan Sunderland Agreement: Will Production Begin in 2027?

The step on the production side was taken on June 3, 2026. Nissan and Chery International UK signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to explore the possibility of contract manufacturing at the Sunderland plant. Nissan plans to use Line One, which is currently idle, for Chery; production is expected to begin from 2027.

Sunderland's idle capacity explains the logic of this partnership. The plant's annual capacity is 600,000 units; in 2025, only 273,000 vehicles could be produced. More than half of the capacity sitting idle offers a practical solution for both parties: Nissan utilizes its capacity, while Chery gains access to an existing production infrastructure instead of building a factory from scratch.

It should be emphasized that the agreement is a non-binding working arrangement; production is not yet finalized. Nevertheless, if the deal goes through, it will be the first large-scale domestic production by a Chinese automotive brand in the UK. In addition, Chery SA's signing of an agreement in January 2026 to purchase Nissan's production assets in Rosslyn, South Africa, shows that the relationship between the two companies cannot be reduced to a single project.

The Chery Jaguar Land Rover Partnership and the Return of the Freelander

Chery's ties with the UK are not new. The Chery Jaguar Land Rover (CJLR) joint venture has been running since 2012. JLR has announced that it will end production by the end of 2026 after the venture posted an 18.7 million dollar loss in the 2024 fiscal year; but this is not being read as the end of the relationship. On the contrary, the partnership is finding a new form.

The most striking move of the joint venture is the revival of the Freelander brand. In China, vehicles built on Chery's T1X platform are being rebranded under this storied Land Rover name. The first model, the Freelander 8, was launched on September 3, 2026; the limited-production version, with a discounted pre-sale price of 329,900 yuan (approximately 48,650 dollars), sold out before the launch.

The internationalization plan is also clear: A decision was made to start from the Middle East in 2026, and in October 2026 an expansion to Europe using Chery technology was announced. The goal is to reach 300,000 annual sales within five years; half of that is expected to come from overseas markets. This picture makes the question raised by Auto Express a natural one: Could the partnership evolve into a closer relationship with JLR, even a merger; the possibility of JLR acquiring Chery is also being discussed. The fact that such questions are even being asked measures the shift in the standing of Chinese manufacturers.

Why Did British Car Manufacturing Hit a 73-Year Low?

Reading Chery's UK strategy without the point where British manufacturing currently stands would be incomplete. In 2025, 764,715 vehicles were produced in the UK; this is the lowest level seen since 1952, in other words a 73-year low. Cars accounted for 717,371 units of that production. The cyber attack JLR suffered, tariffs, and the electric vehicle transition are cited as the main causes of the decline. In 2026, the picture has not improved: As of August, approximately 450,000 vehicles have been produced since the start of the year, a drop of 8.1 percent compared with the same period last year.

This context also explains why Chery is so eager. In a country with idle production capacity, a deep talent pool, and ready testing infrastructure, producing there while sidestepping the trade pressures it is politically likely to face seems strategically more sustainable than growing through imports. If production takes place in Sunderland, Chery will cease to be merely a brand selling in the market and become part of the British automotive industry.

Assessment: Is This Plan Realistic?

Seen from an eight-year perspective, the contrasts in this picture are striking. On one side, British manufacturing fallen to a 73-year low; on the other, the Chery group, which sold 276,820 vehicles in a single month and exported 202,533 of them, becoming the first Chinese manufacturer to export more than 200,000 vehicles in a single month. The mocking nickname aimed at the Jaecoo 7 has been overshadowed by the sales successes; whatever consumers say, the statistics tell a different story.

On the other hand, the plan still has its uncertainties. The size of the Millbrook investment was not disclosed, the Nissan agreement is not binding, and a Chinese brand carrying out full-scale design and manufacturing in the UK also brings with it the obstacles it would face from both industry and politics. However, the market share Chery has captured with four brands, its 14-year partnership history with JLR, and the fact that Sunderland has already opened its doors slightly suggest that this is not temporary rhetoric but a long-term strategy. It is still too early to reach a conclusion; but the direction is that Britain's old automotive masters are opening their doors to Chery, not the other way around.

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