Nevo Q06 News

An unknown brand specialising in hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) from China will arrive in Australia next year to take on BYD, Chery, GAC, Geely, Haval, MG and others. This may sound like every other Tuesday, nowadays, but the difference here is that the latest nameplate arrival, Nevo, will represent Changan Automobile – the state-owned carmaker that has been making vehicles in China since 1959. And that’s the longest of the lot. According to Changan Australia Head of Brand and Marketing Andrew Haurissa Nevo is now locked in for our market. “The first one (after luxury brand Avatr) will be a Nevo vehicle,” he revealed. “Whether it comes here as Nevo or Changan Nevo, that’s yet to be confirmed.” While only existing since 2023 in its home market as a Qiyuan, Nevo has been a runaway success, and so will be set up as the public-facing mainstream entity, likely in lieu of the Changan brand in Australia, at least for the time being. Which Nevo arrives first is not yet clear. It is believed that the Q05 small SUV hybrid and the Q06 mid-sized SUV EV with range-extender EV option may be at the head of the queue. Taking a page out of the Geely EX5 playbook, these should give Changan Automobile two strong players in the $30,000 to $50,000 price range, capitalising on the booming electrification growth areas in Australia, to put it in the thick of the action. Interestingly, Australians already have been exposed to Changan and Nevo models already. The Mazda 6e and CX-6e EV sedan and SUV are part of a joint-venture project using two respective Deepal models as a base - the L07 and S07 respectively. Plus, there is the E07 Multitruck, the strange SUV/pick-up truck mash-up EV marketed in Australia by Subaru importer Inchcape as a Deepal, alongside the more-conventional S07 mid-sized SUV coupe sibling that isn’t sold as a Nevo in China. Here’s how the strategy should play out in Australia. Nevo will sit at the bottom of the rung under the Changan Automobile parent-company umbrella, coming in after Avatr launches in the first half of next year, as the flagship luxury brand. To that end, the latter will take on BYD’s Denza, Geely’s Zeekr, MG’s IM and GWM’s Wey models, beginning with the Zeekr 7X-chasing 07L large-sized premium SUV EV, followed by the 06T sports wagon/crossover EV due towards the end of 2027. If that seems like a big gap, in China, Deepal is the premium brand positioned in between. Right now, there’s no talk about Changan Australia taking over Deepal distribution from Inchcape, but that may change once the contract ends in the future. “Some products coming from the Nevo stable might seem better than Deepal, but from a brand hierarchy perspective, Deepal sits above Nevo,” Haurissa revealed. “In Australia, we are quite unique in that we will be managing both (Nevo and Avatr together). “However, the brands will sit quite separately. They’re structured separately now, but they are conforming in the back end. “Think of how Volkswagen (and Skoda, Cupra, Audi) and Porsche are. Similarly, we will have a joint back end to support the brands, but will be marketed very differently.”