Chery Is Entering the UK Backwards
On August 19, Chery announced a passenger vehicle R&D center in the UK — located at the UTAC Millbrook proving ground in Bedfordshire, operational by late autumn 2026. Initial focus: chassis dynamics and ADAS calibration for UK driving conditions. Later: autonomous driving and AI.
Chery entered the UK with Omoda in August 2024, Jaecoo in January 2025. By July 2026, SMMT data shows Chery plus its brands at nearly 8% of the UK market. SMMT’s July data is the official UK market registry — hard numbers, not estimates.
Chinese brands overall took around 15% of UK new car registrations in H1 2026, up from 10% for full-year 2025. The pace is steep. In June, Chery confirmed it is in talks with Nissan to produce Chery passenger vehicles at the Sunderland plant from next year. A non-binding agreement has reportedly been signed.
This is not a sales expansion. This is a full-stack local operation: engineering, manufacturing, sales, and — by extension — parts and service.
And here’s the part that matters for the aftermarket: A vehicle that’s engineered, calibrated, and potentially built in the UK is a vehicle that generates UK parts data from day one.
The VIN tracking, the calibration files, the service manuals, the torque specs, the ADAS camera angles, the suspension settings — all of that becomes locally sourced information. That’s what makes a car repairable outside the OEM network. The R&D center in Bedfordshire is not a marketing move.
It’s the first visible piece of an aftermarket infrastructure being built before the volume arrives. That’s exactly the sequence the European aftermarket has been asking for.
Related: China-made parts index
