Rebranding before the start: instead of Chery NEV in the Russian Federation there will be Chery Tiggo, the first model will surprise!

The Russian representative office of the Chinese company Chery today announced the renaming of the new sub-brand of electrified cars announced last month: instead of the faceless abbreviation NEV for the Russian consumer, it was decided to rely on the well-recognized name Tiggo, under which new electric and plug-in hybrid Chery models will come to our country. Moreover, electric ones have already been shown at a closed dealer presentation. We tell you what is known at the moment.

The abbreviation NEV, widely used in China, stands for New Energy Vehicle; it combines electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The Chery company is now actively developing the NEV direction of its business, in China they even revived the Fulwin brand for it, but in Russia Chery will have its own NEV story.

In November, Chery Automobiles Rus JSC announced the launch of the Chery NEV sub-brand in our country, and today it was announced that instead of Chery NEV there will be Chery Tiggo, although the concept, in fact, has not changed at all: its own dealer network will be created for NEV models, by the end of 2024, it will have 70 dealerships throughout the country.

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On December 12, the Russian office of Chery held a closed presentation of the new sub-brand for dealers and showed the first two models, both electric — the Tiggo eQ1 city electric car and the Tiggo eQ7 mid-size crossover. In total, by the end of 2024, the lineup of the newly created Chery Tiggo sub-brand will consist of seven models, of which three are electric and four are hybrid.

The Chery brand itself already has three hybrid models in the Russian Federation — they will go to a new sub-brand, that is, Chery Tiggo. At the same time, purely gasoline Tiggo models will remain under the wing of the parent brand, that is, Chery.

Updated Chery Little Ant/eQ1 for Chinese market 1/2 Updated Chery Little Ant/eQ1 for the Chinese market 2/2

So far, only the Tiggo eQ1 electric car has been officially announced for the media and the end consumer; its sales in Russia should begin in April-May next year. In China, the Chery eQ1 has been known since 2016 under the name Little Ant; today it is part of the QQ electric sub-brand along with the QQ Wujie Pro cross-hatchback and the recently updated QQ Ice Cream hatchback. Little Ant/eQ1 itself underwent a restyling last fall in China and received a completely new interior. As you can understand from the photos and videos from the closed presentation published on the social network VKontakte, the eQ1 will come to us with a changed, more brutal appearance and a restyled interior.

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The overall length of the current Little Ant/eQ1 for the Chinese market is 3200 mm, width — 1670 mm, height — 1550 mm, wheelbase — 2150 mm. The cabin is designed for four, and there is even room for luggage — although only a couple of small bags will fit in there.

Updated Chery Little Ant/eQ1 for the Chinese market 1/3 Updated Chery Little Ant/eQ1 for the Chinese market 2/3 Updated Chery Little Ant/eQ1 for the Chinese market 3/3

The only electric motor in the Little Ant/eQ1 is located on the rear axle and rotates the rear wheels, its maximum output is 36 kW (49 hp) and 95 Nm. The battery capacity is 25.05 or 29.23 kWh, the range on one charge is 251 and 321 km according to the CLTC cycle, respectively. Top speed is limited to 100 km/h. Before restyling, the Ant also had a version with a 55 kW (75 hp) motor, a 40.3 kWh battery and a cruising range of 408 km on a single charge according to the CLTC cycle. What hardware the Russian version of the model will have is still unknown. Note that no one has officially supplied Chinese “electric trains” of this class to Russia before.

Chery eQ7 for the Chinese market 1/2 Chery eQ7 for the Chinese market 2/2

We won’t talk in detail about the eQ7 crossover here, since we wrote a note about it in August; here we’ll just briefly remind you that the Chery eQ7 is a restyled version of the eQ5 crossover from 2020. Overall length of the eQ7 is 4675 mm, width is 1910 mm, height is 1660 mm, wheelbase is 2830 mm. In China, Chery eQ1 is equipped with a single electric motor on the rear axle with a power of 135 kW (184 hp) or 155 kW (211 hp), battery capacity — 53.87 or 67.12 kWh, range on one charge — 412 and 512 km on the CLTC cycle, respectively.

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We would like to add that Chery’s arsenal from this year also includes a purely electric car brand iCar, but it has not yet been announced for Russia.