Most car brands in South Africa sell a range and hope two or three models carry it. Chery sells one. Between January and August the Tiggo 4 accounted for 15,729 of the 19,730 cars the brand sold locally, which is five and a half times its next-best seller, the Tiggo 7.
That concentration sits on a short history here. Chery cars first arrived in 2008 through third-party importers, and the brand pulled out of the market in 2018. It came back in November 2021 as a wholly owned subsidiary with a head office in Sandton, and the climb since has been steep: fewer than 400 cars a month in 2021, consistently past 1,000 a month in 2022, and over 2,000 every month of this year.
Put another way, Chery now sells more cars in two months than it managed in the whole of 2021. In August it ranked sixth among manufacturers in South Africa, in the company of Mahindra, Kia and Nissan, which is not where anyone had it five years ago.
The seven-seater that is not a Tiggo 4
The newest arrival is not another Tiggo 4. The Tiggo 8 Apex I landed on 18 September at R569 900, a standalone version of the seven-seater with a redesigned front and a longer features list, while the rest of the Tiggo 8 range keeps its current styling. Mechanically it is unremarkable, at 137kW from a 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol four driving the front wheels.
The warranty is where the pitch actually is. Chery sells the car with seven years or 200,000km of cover, a five-year service plan, and a million kilometres on the engine for the first owner. That is a brand spending money on the one thing a South African buyer still hesitates over, which is what the car will be worth when they come to sell it.
The plant Nissan used to run
Selling cars is one thing, building them is the next. Chery formally took over Nissan's Rosslyn plant outside Pretoria in July, on a deal announced in January, and says it will spend millions of dollars on machinery and upgrades before production starts in mid-2027. Vice president Charlie Zhang says the longer plan is to put research, supply chain and training on the same site.
Zhang ties that to a goal of more than 100,000 vehicle sales a year in South Africa. Chery sold 26,102 cars here last year and is on track to beat it. The Rosslyn target is close to four times that, and one model will not carry it there.
