South Africa’ s biggest Chinese automotive group has a vision for local manufacturing and R & D.
Chery’ s African Ambitions
South Africa’ s biggest Chinese automotive group has a vision for local manufacturing and R & D.
Last month, the Chery Group surpassed VW and Suzuki to become South Africa’ s second-largest passenger car brand. At the start of the year, we predicted that Chery, with its several sub-brands, would be the Chinese automaker to watch in South Africa.
After acquiring Nissan’ s 60-year-old Rosslyn production facility in Tshwane, it has become the first Chinese OEM with proper localised production capacity. This is a profound moment for the South African automotive industry. Chery can now access the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition( DTIC) APDP programme, which offers significant incentives for local automotive development. More importantly, it allows Chery to produce a model for the South African market that could be even cheaper or more feature-rich, without the 25 % import duty on current Chery units.
What about those Nissan people?
since the late 1990s, and he will provide valuable continuity as the Rosslyn facility transitions to Chery’ s new products and industrial engineering systems.
The Rosslyn facility has a production capacity of 50,000 units. That is smaller than some of the other legacy OEM facilities, such as the VW plant in Kariega, which can produce more than 200,000 units a year during a three-shift cycle.
What are they building?
During a lavish ceremony for the official Rosslyn handover, attended by Minister of Trade and Industry, Parks Tau, Chery did reveal its production plans for 2027.
The initial expectation was that the Chery sub-brand, Jetour, would be building its T2 when the plant reopens for production in the second half of 2027. The T2 is one of South Africa’ s most popular mid-size crossover SUVs, and a logical candidate for local production.
Nissan’ s global survival has meant South African sacrifice. A beneficiary has been Chery, which now has an ageing, but operational, car assembly plant in South Africa. And one located strategically inside a legacy automotive supply base( Rosslyn).
Chery has not said how much it paid Nissan for the Rosslyn facility, but with Nissan in a deep crisis, the negotiating leverage was unquestionably to Chery’ s advantage.
Former Nissan South African engineering manager Lenard Smith has become the engineering team lead at Chery South Africa. Smith has been with Nissan South Africa
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