What brand does this badge belong to?

Feel like there’s suddenly a whole lot of new car brands with logos you don’t even recognise. 

That’s totally normal - a multitude of new makes and models have arrived in Australia during the past 12 months bringing badges not even we’ve seen before.

Read more about

• New-car carnage as China crushes siblings
• The cars to boost Chinese brand in Oz
• All the Chinese car brands in Australia and their models

Geely

Yesterday I watched somebody walk past the Geely EX5 SUV I was testing and I could tell they were trying to work out what it was they were looking at. And then from the way they craned their head to look at the bonnet they were obviously hoping the badge on the front would answer some questions. Ha! No chance. They looked even more confused and were faced with a badge that looks like a block of chocolate. Welcome to Geely’s badge! 

Each rectangle is a gem, the blue ones represent the sky, the black ones the land. But they’re all grey on the badge? Yes, yes they are. At least it’s better than Geely’s previous logo.

Zeekr

Zeekr is a made-up name with the company saying the “Ze” is for Generation Z and then “Kr” stands for, wait for it… Krypton. No, I’m completely serious and I’m as perplexed as you are. 

Fortunately the badge has a nice design, which I originally thought was a stylised “Z” but it’s actually made up of a square representing a gate and the zig zag line representing the first rays of sunlight coming through. Okay then.

Zeekr currently has the small X hatch, the 7X SUV and the 009 people mover on sale in Australia.

Deepal

Deepal says its name refers to the depths of the ocean and space — both places its cars can’t go, but nobody can accuse them of lacking ambition. 

The arrow head logo is made up of three parts and according to the company these represent humanity, nature and technology. It’s a good logo and I like what it represents, even if I’m not sure what connection it has to making cars. If we’re still looking for a logo for Earth’s Space Federation in a 1000 years we should steal Deepal's. Nobody will know where we got it from.  

Deepal's Aussie line-up includes the S05 and S07 SUVs and the weird ute-like E07

Smart

Smart is owned by Mercedes-Benz and Geely — both have a 50 per cent stake. The small electric cars have Geely tech and engineering while Benz does the styling. 

The company says the logo is made up of a “C”, which stands for Compact, and an arrow meaning to go forward. Personally I prefer the previous design where the arrow was yellow and the logo looked like a cute cartoon puffin head.   

Smart's Aussie line-up includes the #1 hatch and #3 small SUV.

Chery

Chery is a vague English pronunciation of the Chinese word for “interesting’, which is interesting because they didn’t spell it Cherry and that frustrates me constantly. Surely I’m not the only one?  

Anyway the Chery logo doesn’t show a mountain inside a ring, as I also thought, it’s actually a stylised “A” inside a ring. What does the A stand for? Auto, obviously.

Chery's latest SUVs include the Tiggo 8 and Tiggo 9 seven seaters.

XPeng

XPeng is a combination of two Chinese words — Xiao (little) and Peng (bird). So Little Bird is the name.

The logo is quite beautiful — the X is stylised to look like wings. It's probably my favourite logo of the new Chinese brands.

XPeng's current Aussie line-up includes the G6 SUV with the G9 SUV and the X9 people mover to follow soon.

Leapmotor

Leapmotor is a Chinese car company that's 20 per cent owned by Euro car giant Stellantis. It arrived recently in Australia, with the C10 SUV in both electric and hybrid variants.

The logo, which uses the letters L and P, doesn't stand for Leapmotor as I had assumed, but for Lingpao, which is Chinese for "from zero to leap". I like that.

Cupra

Spanish brand Cupra says its name is a combination of the word Cup and Racing, which is fine but it’s pronounced “coopra”.

Cupra’s logo was designed by Spanish car designer Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos and is supposed to show two intersecting triangles representing dynamic forces. As a parent I just see something that looks like it would hurt to step on in the dark.

Cupra's Aussie line-up includes the Tavasca, Ateca, Terramar and Formentor SUVS.