‘Fighting for their lives’: Real reason car brands attacking BYD, Chery, Geely

Legacy car brands are “fighting for their lives” in the face of the rise and rise of Chinese cars, according to the boss of one of Australia's most popular Chinese car makers.

Lucas Harris, Chief Operating Officer for Chery, has dismissed the suggestion that his and other Chinese car brands are ‘dumping’ new vehicles here. While rival car makers are publicly hesitant to criticise their Chinese, behind-the-scenes the accusations of dumping and surviving on Chinese government support have become increasingly common.

Read More About Chery

• Secret to Chery's success in Australia as it outsells Nissan, Subaru, Honda and Volkswagen, with 2026 Chery Tiggo 4 and Jaecoo J5 leading the way
• July 2026 Australian new car sales: Toyota surges with RAV4 SUV in wake of BYD and Chery, while the EV revolution powers on
• Chery sub-brand Lepas confirms first Australian model with 2027 Lepas L6 mid-size electric family SUV to launch this year as rival for BYD Atto 3 and Geely EX5

“ I would be reluctant to speak poorly about any other particular brands or countries of origins,” Harris told CarsGuide.

“And the only explanation I could think of why someone would want to do that is if they were fighting for their lives, and they knew that they couldn't win in a fair fight.” 

China's monumental rise

China has become the largest provider of new vehicles to Australia, surpassing Japan and Thailand, as its domestic brands have now established themselves in the local market.

Chery the eighth best-selling brand in Australia, just behind GWM, with BYD the closest challenger to Toyota at the top of the sales charts.

Even Chery’s off-shoot brands, Omoda-Jaecoo, are enjoying strong sales growth of more than 800 per cent year-to-date (to the end of June), out-selling Honda and Suzuki.

More Chery sub-brands coming

Harris is confident Chery’s growth and sales position is sustainable, as it has been on an upward trajectory for more than two years. Which is why he is confident enough to add a fourth brand, Lepas, alongside Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo beginning in October.

“I think it's almost 24 or 25 months now where we've consecutively, month-on-month, gone up,” he said.

“So we've been putting a lot of effort into trying to have very sustainable sales performance, which is why we don't see these huge peaks and troughs where one month you might do 8,000 and the next month you do 3,000 and then you jump to 6,000 again. It's all over the place. And that sort of volatility and result doesn't give dealers a great deal of confidence either to invest.

“So we've really been working on trying to have sustainable, consistent growth over time. So if I say ‘yes, I'm confident,’ it's because we've been doing it for 24 months in a row now. So yes is the short answer to your question.

"I think that with the introduction of some new models it's going to help. You look at adding the Omoda Jaecoo brand has added a significant amount of incremental volume in a very short period of time. And no doubt when we launch Lepas our intention is to do the same.”