Chinese motoring giant Chery is planning to launch its fourth brand in the UK in two years, with the arrival of Lepas later this year.
While Chery is yet to detail exactly which Lepas models are coming to the UK, we do know that the first Lepas model will arrive in Britain in the third quarter of this year – sometime in July, August, or September.
It’s the latest move in Chery’s meteoric rise up the UK new car sales charts. Last month, its three existing brands (Chery, Jaecoo and Omoda) combined to take third place in UK new car registrations, behind only Volkswagen and Kia. That’s despite Omoda only being on sale here for about 18 months, Jaecoo about 12 months and Chery about three months.
Beyond the Chery family, Lepas will join the ever-expanding list of Chinese automotive marques vying for UK car buyers’ attention, including BYD, Changan, Geely, GWM, Leapmotor and Xpeng.
Already on sale in Indonesia, and about to launch in Australia, the Lepas range consists of one model so far, called the L8. It is a mid-size plug-in hybrid SUV that is essentially a reworked version of the Chery Tiggo 8, sharing the same foundations, powertrain options and on-board tech.
Lepas has also announced plans for smaller L4 and L6 SUVs in other markets, but little is known about them so far.
Lepas is expected to sit underneath the Omoda and Jaecoo brands in the Chery family, looking to offer households a more affordable entry point to plug-in hybrid or all-electric car ownership. In other words, it is Chery’s answer to budget manufacturers like Leapmotor or Dacia.
Where Lepas clearly differentiates itself from its Chery Group rivals is powertrains. It is expected that the brand won’t offer purely petrol cars, only hybrids and electric models.
We’ll bring you more information about Lepas as soon as we have it, so stay tuned.
Interested in finding out what else is coming this year? We have the full breakdown of what to expect in 2026 – new brands and models – right here.
