Chery Australia eager to develop a dual-cab locally

Chinese challenger brand Chery could employ Australian engineering and know-how in the development of its upcoming Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux rival.

Speaking to carsales at the local release of the Omoda E5 electric SUV, Chery Australia chief operating officer Lucas Harris said a dual-cab ute remains firmly on his wishlist and that it would be “crazy” not to use Australian expertise in its development.

“The simple answer is yes … we would advocate heavily for that,” he said when asked if the local operation wants to tailor the new dual-cab’s development for our market.

“There are amazing and talented engineering experts in Australia, and I think any global company developing something like a pick-up, which we’re so famous for, would be crazy not to come here and utilise that local talent.

“Otherwise, it might disappear one day.”

Reports of a Chery dual-cab ute have been circulating ever since the brand confirmed its return to Australia in 2022 and bubbled back to the surface last month when Chery’s executive vice president, Zhang Guibing, confirmed to media that a pick-up truck was “in progress”.

Harris also revealed it’s unlikely the model would conform to the segment norm and feature a turbo-diesel powertrain.

“We don’t have any diesel engines in any of our vehicles at the moment, so it’s hard to imagine a diesel pick-up for Chery,” he said.

“But a PHEV is a little more imaginable.”

The prospects of another plug-in hybrid Chinese pick-up truck coming to market sets up an intriguing three-way battle between the eventual Chery product, the inbound BYD Shark and the rumoured but yet-to-be-confirmed GWM Cannon Alpha Hi4T.

Harris made it clear the Chery ute was still at least 12 months away from coming to market and that a global pick-up platform was in the works, however it’s “yet to be determined” if it will make it to Australia.

Said platform is understood to be a monocoque similar to the Hyundai Santa Cruz and Ford Maverick rather than a Ranger-style body-on-frame set-up which largely explains why there are question marks over the global system coming to Australia.

“So pure speculation would be, think about some markets like South Africa and like South East Asia where monocoque chassis pick-ups are quite popular, but something like that may be wouldn’t be as popular here potentially,” Harris said.

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