Omoda: Another Chinese Car Brand to Conquer Hungarian Roads

The Omoda, a brand of Chinese Chery Automobile, is coming to Hungary, reports Világgazdaság. The brand is present in several countries around the world, but Chery has now seen the time as the right moment to make its mark on the European market. The car will be on Hungarian roads from September, available with an internal combustion engine and in fully electric versions.

Omoda manufacturer Chery is China’s fifth largest automotive company and the largest Chinese exporter. By comparison, BYD exports around 400,000 cars a year worldwide, while Chery sold 937,148 cars outside China last year. Including sales in China, the company sold a total of 1 881 316 cars in 2023.

Last year, the company’s revenue was USD 40,000 million, an increase of more than 50 percent over the previous year.

Chery exports to over 80 countries, and is now entering the European market – the figures were reported by Chery’s first European distributor, Genius Automotive’s Managing Director, Mária Goldberger. Genius was founded in 2022 by Márton Hovány and Petrányi.

In Hungary, the Omoda 5 Series will be available with an internal combustion engine and in fully electric versions.

The car will be on the roads from September and Omoda showrooms will open this month in eight locations in the country.

Pre-orders can be placed from the launch event on June 25. Currently, the Omoda pieces destined for the Hungarian market are waiting on a cargo ship in Singapore to be shipped to Europe.

The Omoda will be competitively priced in its class, with the standard petrol engine model being offered for under HUF 10 million with a price tag of HUF 9.99 million (EUR 25,182).

It is expected that 300-500 Omoda 5s will be sold in Hungary by the end of 2025. Chery’s other brands will also arrive to the country, such as the Jaecoo, a higher-priced model that combines styling cues from Land Rover and Jaguar. (According to a South African portal, the price of the Jaecoo model starts at EUR 28,162.)

Chery has already set up nine subsidiaries in Europe since February this year, the first in Spain. Unlike other Chinese brands, the company is not pursuing a strategy of building its own factory for its European presence, but has bought a plant. The Chinese manufacturer has bought Nissan’s Barcelona plant, where its cars will roll off the assembly line.

As for the European tariffs on Chinese electric cars, Mária Goldberger stressed that Chery is cooperating with the EU in all respects, and once production starts at the Barcelona plant,

the company’s cars will not be affected by these tariffs.

Via Világgazdaság; Featured image via Facebook/OMODA Hungary