At last year's Tokyo Motor Show, BYD launched an all-electric K-Car model for the Japanese market, the BYD RACCO Sea Otter. Now, another Chinese automaker has set its sights on this market. According to reports, Chery recently announced it will enter the Japanese market, and the exterior of its first K-Car model was revealed simultaneously.
It is reported that Chery is entering the Japanese market through a joint venture. Chery will cooperate with four companies to establish a new EV brand, EMTA. The four companies are Jiangsu Yueda, Japanese auto parts manufacturer Autobacs Seven, Chinese battery company Gotion High-Tech, and Japanese machinery company Anest. Chery will provide platforms and drive hardware for the new brand among these.
Unlike the previous BYD situation, Chery's strategy this time is to build a brand new brand and emphasizes a Japanese brand positioning. Therefore, besides the participation of two Japanese companies, technicians from Japanese automakers such as Honda and Mazda were recruited to participate in localized development. The company CMO is Shun Uchiyama, who served at Dongfeng Nissan in the early years. At the same time, EMTA's registration location was chosen to be Singapore, which can be said to help avoid the "Made in China" label, so as to better establish in the Japanese market.
As for the first model, EMTA chose a K-Car model with distinct Japanese characteristics. The vehicle length is 3.4 meters, and it will be developed according to Japanese K-Car specifications. Currently, the new car has not been named, and more parameters are unclear. However, looking at the shareholding structure of the enterprise, we can make some guesses. The new car will adopt Chery's electric drive technology and Gotion High-Tech's batteries. Some technologies might adopt the setting of Chery's pure electric small car QQ Ice Cream. As for the two Japanese companies, Autobacs Seven is responsible for sales business, and Anest is responsible for quality management. The new car is scheduled for delivery in 2027 and will form a product matrix of four models by 2029.
However, the competition in this market is still very huge. Competitors include local hot models such as Honda N-Box, Nissan Sakura, Daihatsu Tanto, and Suzuki Hustler, of course, there is also BYD's Racco Sea Otter. K-Car models occupy one-third of Japan's car sales, and for a long time have been almost entirely occupied by Japanese local manufacturers.
BYD entered the Japanese market in 2023, but penetration progress has been very slow, perhaps this is also one of the reasons why Chery entered this time in the form of a joint venture. But whether it can skip the dilemma currently faced by BYD and achieve better results still needs the market to give the answer. For this new Chery car and the move to enter the Japanese market, we will also continue to follow closely.
