PB Balaji said new brand “is Chery’s” and JLR would “let them make up their mind” about bringing it here
JLR won’t stop Chery bringing the new Freelander brand to the UK, new CEO PB Balaji has said, and the Chinese-built SUVs won’t cannibalise any current Land Rover products if they are sold here.
The Freelander 8 was revealed at the start of May as a large 4×4 and the first in a wave of new Freelander-badged cars destined for sale globally; Chery plans to introduce a new model every six months for the next five years.
These are being created as part of a long-standing joint venture between the two car makers. JLR has licenced the Freelander name to Chery and has penned the cars’ designs, but they will be engineered and built by the Chinese company in China.
Sales will begin later this year initially in China before Freelanders are exported to other regions. Autocar previously reported that Chery was plotting which markets it would send those models to, with Europe and the UK not ruled out.
Freelander CEO Wen Fei previously said that any cars exported to Europe wouldn’t be adapted Chinese-market models but instead bespoke derivatives tailored to each market’s demands.
Asked if JLR would give Chery its blessing to sell Freelanders here, given that the British company owns the brand name, Balaji said that “it’s Chery’s car” and JLR would “let them make up their mind”.
He added: “The car will be sold primarily in China to begin with, and then they will have to decide their plans for bringing it out to the rest of the world.
“And from our perspective, our role is ensuring that the design is in sync with what JLR stands for, and thereafter it is completely their baby.”
Balaji’s comments also strongly suggest that, if those Freelanders are sold in the UK and Europe, they won’t be marketed by JLR or placed in its showrooms.
Speaking further about any potential cannibalisation of JLR’s cars, especially given the Freelanders are to be positioned within the same segments as Discovery and Defender models, Balaji said he wasn’t worried.
“The price positioning of Freelander and our price positions are different,” he explained. “The product offerings are different. So we don’t see ourselves competing with each other.
“We see it as ‘together we should be expanding the market’. So let them make up their mind as to how they want to play the game.”
