2026 Chery E5 Reviews

It was building for a long time, but now the giant wave of Chinese challenger brands entering the Australian new-car market has hit our shores with a vengeance.

Chinese newcomer Chery has admitted it has work to do fine-tuning its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for the Australian market.

Chinese carmaker Chery will supply its SUV technology to South Korea’s KGM Ssangyong, in a move that will see the latter develop new medium and large petrol and hybrid SUVs for its domestic market, according to local reports.It builds on a previous deal signed in October last year, which gave KGM Ssangyong access to Cheryl's 'Global Technology Platform', a modular platform designed to underpin petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric cars, to counter Hyundai and Kia’s dominance in the South Korean market.The new agreement reportedly gives it further access to Chery’s self-driving technology, as well as more advanced electrical architecture to further develop software-defined-vehicles.A new KGM Ssangyong SUV using a Chery platform is slated to arrive in 2026, although it is unclear whether we will see it in Australia.In addition to the partnership with Chery, KGM Ssangyong recently partnered with American components manufactuer Phinia Delphi to develop diesel-hydrogen technology for its range of commercial vehicles, which currently includes the Musso ute.Chery has been one of the biggest success stories in the Australian market this year, with sales of its SUV-only line-up skyrocketing by a staggering 216.6 per cent in the first three months of the year compared to the same period last year.As of March, Chery has sold 6057 cars, up from 1913 last year, with the vast majority of those sales coming from the Chery 4 Tiggo Pro small SUV, which is currently the second-cheapest car in the country.KGM Ssangyong, meanwhile, has struggled locally with sales down 18.6 per cent to the end of March compared to the same period last year, or 1368 sales down to 1114.The brand’s current top-seller is the Musso ute, with its SUV models – the Korando, Rexton and Torres – proving less popular.Further reinforcements in the upper mid-sized KGM Ssangyong Actyon and electric Musso EV ute are expected later this year to try and help turn things around.

Chery won’t follow the lead of Hyundai, Kia and now GWM and hire local expertise to make its cars better suited to Australian tastes and conditions.

Chery has launched a new family-sized, plug-in hybrid SUV in the UK under its more premium Omoda sub-brand.As a fellow right-hand-drive market, the Omoda 9 will launch in the UK with a price tag of £45,000 (A$93,664) in May. Should it land in Australia at some stage to rival the BYD Sealion 6 and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, it would likely receive a significant price cut thanks to lower taxation and transport costs.The brand's local operations told CarsGuide it was reviewing the Omoda range for the Australian market, which currently consists of the Omoda 5 and its electric E5 sibling, though a spokesperson stopped short of confirming the model for Australia.In terms of design, the Omoda 9 carries a similar design language to its smaller Omoda E5 sibling, albeit with larger proportions and a few styling tweaks. That includes added front and rear LED light-bars and seemingly Kia-inspired, fang-style LED headlights.It lines up at 4774mm long, 1932mm wide and 1686mm tall with a wheelbase of 2800mm, making it longer, wider and taller than the BYD Sealion 6, but slightly shorter than the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.Power is sourced from a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine and twin electric motors mounted on each axle. Combined it delivers 330kW/700Nm to all four wheels through a three-speed automatic transmission.Additionally, there is a new 34.4kWh battery pack sourced from Chinese battery giant CATL, with a max DC charging rate of 70kW. It claims to be 20 per cent more energy dense than the firm's previous lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) units, and delivers a claimed electric range of 149km.Despite carrying at least 60km more of claimed electric range over its Sealion 6 and Outlander competitors, there is no confirmation that this figure has been scrutinised under the WLTP cycle.The interior is headlined by a single 24.6-inch display that incorporates the multimedia display and digital driver’s display into a single unit. As with the rest of the Omoda range, the interior is abundant with chrome trims, while providing welcome luxury features such as a panoramic sunroof and premium Sony stereo.Chery has reportedly prioritised acoustic refinement with the Omoda 9, adding acoustically-oriented Michelin tyres and double-glazed windows. The car sits on magnetorheological dampers and carries six drive modes (Eco, Normal, Sport, Mud and Off-road).Physical buttons, switches and knobs remain for climate control, along with radio, seat-heating and ventilation functions.Autocar UK reported that an additional Toyota RAV4 and Mazda CX-5 rival in the Omoda 7 will follow the Omoda 9 in the UK later.The latest Omoda news in Australia is the local Chery division will spin Omoda off into its own sub-brand separate from Chery's mainline vehicles and the Jaecoo division. Future Omoda vehicles will be sold alongside Jaecoo as a more premium offering, similar to how the sub-brands work in Europe.

Chery may only have arrived in Australia a few years ago but the Chinese automotive giant has revealed major expansion plans.

The rapid and seemingly unstoppable expansion of Chinese carmakers is something to behold.But is it too far-fetched to think all cars will be Chinese within the next 20 years? Or is it naive not to see it as a strong possibility?For a long time I’ve thought the emergence of new Chinese cars in Australia and globally was the natural progression of the car industry. New brands morph from alternative fledgling brands to mature and established ones. We saw this with Japanese brands such as Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan which gained popularity in the 1960s and ’70s before becoming established go-to brands in the 1980s and ’90s as they fought homegrown heroes Ford and Holden for space in Australia's driveways. And it stayed that way until the first decade of the 2000s ticked over.Holden and Ford’s ranges and sales shrank giving way to the Koreans who filled the gap with Hyundai and Kia which have climbed high into the top 10 thanks to an excellent range of SUVs and EVs.They’re now marching towards the only brands that stand in their way - Mitsubishi, Ford, Mazda and Toyota - which, by the way, have about three EVs between them.And given another five years Kia and Hyundai may have been able to topple Toyota from number one. But it might be too late for that. The presence of a large and fast-growing force is creating major uncertainty for the established brands in the Australian market - the rise and rise of Chinese brands. At the end of 2024 there were 12 Chinese brands operating in Australia and this year we’re expecting at least another seven to arrive. To put that in perspective we currently have a total of 50 car brands in Australia and nine are Japanese. By the end of 2025 the Chinese tally could easily be 20 brands or 30 per cent of Australia's brand make up.Several Chinese brands have been in Australia for years and have already done the hard yards. It took MG a couple of attempts to find a foothold but it was the seventh best-selling brand in 2024, while GWM came in at 10th. LDV is further down but still sold more than 16,000 vehicles here last year.The newer Chinese arrivals show huge promise with most of them offering affordable electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids when the established brands have only a handful among them, usually at higher prices.BYD, Zeekr, Leapmotor, Geely, Deepal, XPeng, Smart, JAC, Aion, Chery and Jaecoo will spend 2025 launching a multitude of new vehicles here. BYD will be one to watch having sold more cars here last year than Mercedes-Benz and it will likely enter the top 10 best sellers next year. Geely, which is the ‘Volkswagen of China’ in terms of its size and how many brands it owns, is another to watch.Chinese car manufacturers' speed of production, the development of new platforms and technology, the low cost of batteries, availability of electronics and the breakthroughs being made in charging systems, plus the sheer amount of money and Chinese government support behind them make competition almost impossible for many other brands.It’s almost certain that some established brands will bow out of Australia, unable to compete with Chinese brands. It’s also feasible that within the next decade more than half the Australian market could be made up of Chinese brands. And surely some Chinese brands won’t be able to cut it here and leave, too.Who could survive? Well, time has shown that even the mighty like Holden have fallen if they don’t make the cars people want to buy. The sheer brute force of Chinese brands being able to offer what people want quickly and at a low price, and at an always improving tech level could be too difficult for many other brands to fight off.In an extreme scenario this could lead to a 100 per cent Chinese brand market within 15 years. Sounds far fetched? Well they’re a third of the way there already.  

Believe it or not, exactly two years have passed since the Chery Omoda 5 reestablished the Chinese challenger brand’s presence in the Australian new car market.It was already two years old by the time it hit our shores, so a design and packaging refresh is almost overdue.No surprise, then, that an updated version of the five-seat Omoda 5 small SUV has begun to appear in selected export markets.Changes are mostly cosmetic, including a glow-up for the previous broad, honeycomb-style grille to an equally bold ‘Matrix Grille’ treatment. At the same time the combination headlight pods on either side have been extended downwards and recessed more distinctly to form a more pronounced angular section defining the grille.The Omoda name also sits proudly at the top of the nose, under the leading edge of the bonnet in similar fashion to the current Omoda E5 pure-electric variant, while the slimline LED DRLs are unchanged. Redesigned 18-inch gloss black alloy wheels feature a five-way twin-spoke design.But the updates aren’t all cosmetic with the brand’s packaging boffins tweaking the boot space to increase volume (with rear seats upright) close to 20 per cent from 372 litres (360L quoted in Australia) to 442 litres.The interior is untouched with the sleek dual 10.25-inch screens in place across the dash and broad centre console including a ‘flying buttress’ design to provide a handy lower storage and connectivity space.Similarly, the (108kW /210Nm) 1.5-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-petrol engine driving the front wheels through a CVT auto is unchanged.    When contacted for an update on the revised Omoda 5’s arrival in the local market, Chery Australia told CarsGuide it "doesn't have any confirmed timing for this model as yet".

Chery's new Tiggo 4 Pro aces ANCAP test despite rivals recently falling short.

Affordable electric cars are an emerging market in Australia - and the timing couldn’t be better.