Chery at Chengdu 2026: Luxeed RX pre-orders, first-half finances, and what Omoda and Jaecoo UK buyers need to know

Chery Holdings is the Chinese state-backed group that manufactures your Omoda E5 or Jaecoo 7. Its H1 2026 results, published on 20 August 2026, show a company in active strategic transition rather than outright difficulty. Group revenue edged up just 1.2 per cent to ¥143.28 billion — broadly flat — while profit attributable to shareholders fell 11.7 per cent to ¥8.57 billion. On the surface that looks like pressure; in context it reflects the investment cycle that comes with electrifying a group that sells more than a million vehicles a year. Gross margin actually improved, rising from 13.0 to 16.1 per cent, suggesting the core business is becoming more efficient even as it spends heavily on reinvention. Net margin held at 6.3 per cent.

The most telling detail in Chery's H1 report is not the headline profit figure but the shift between product lines. New-energy vehicle revenue jumped 63.8 per cent year on year to ¥59.28 billion, lifting the NEV share of group turnover from 25.6 to 41.4 per cent in a single year. Combustion revenue moved the other way, falling 24.8 per cent to ¥69.51 billion. Chery spent ¥6.67 billion on research and development over the same period — 28.3 per cent more than a year ago — with stated priorities of electrification, new platforms, assisted driving and smart cockpits. Those investments represent the technology pipeline that will flow into Omoda and Jaecoo models sold in the UK over the next two to three years. The group operates 12 major production bases globally, three of them outside China.

The most headline-grabbing Chery product at the 2026 Chengdu Auto Show was the Luxeed RX, a large premium SUV developed through Chery's joint venture with Huawei Technologies. Pre-orders opened on 20 August 2026, the day before the show officially opened. The car was styled by Werner Gruber, a former Ferrari designer whose previous work includes the LaFerrari and the FXX-K — a pedigree you would not normally associate with a Chinese SUV at this price point. At 5,020 mm long with a 3,000 mm wheelbase it is a big car; the standard specification includes an in-cabin LiDAR sensor and Huawei's Qiankun assisted-driving system (the Tuling platform), while the upper variant is engineered for conditional automation at the L3 level. This is Chery's clearest statement yet about where its premium product strategy is heading.

Profit falling 11.7 per cent is worth noting but not alarming in isolation. Chery remains comfortably profitable at 6.3 per cent net margin, and its balance sheet is buoyed by 69 per cent of revenue coming from outside China — a diversification most Western carmakers would envy. The new UK R&D centre at Nissan's Sunderland site, opened in August 2026, is a concrete commitment to the right-hand-drive market rather than a token presence. The Luxeed RX is not coming to the UK anytime soon; it is a China-first product at a premium price. What it confirms is that the group behind your Omoda E5 or Jaecoo 7 is investing seriously in Huawei-grade ADAS and electrification, and that capability will filter into volume models on a two-to-four-year timescale. This is not a brand planning to retreat from the UK.