Chery Australia is prioritising improvements to its driver assistance software over local hardware tuning as it really works to make its cars more suitable for local conditions.
While some carmakers develop local suspension and steering tunes for his or her vehicles to make them better-suited for Australia’s unique road conditions, Chery says it plans to speculate in those areas down the road.
Within the meantime, its focus stays on improving the calibration of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) resembling driver monitoring, adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist.
Chery Australia chief operating officer, Lucas Harris has previously admitted that the brand got off to a rocky start with its Australian relaunch in 2023, after widespread criticism of the calibration of its ADAS technology.
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On the launch of the brand new Omoda E5, Mr Harris told CarExpert that it is going to be easier to deal with those criticisms within the short term, before introducing hardware upgrades.
“Dynamic handling, steering and suspension takes an extended time to check and make changes. Things like ADAS and DMS are only software, so the lead cycles to make improvements are so much shorter,” said Mr Harris.
“When those driver aid systems aren’t good, it’s obvious to consumers. Dynamic handling must be really bad for an everyday consumer to know.
“Our focus is on those driver aids because that’s what most persons are going to feel really quickly, immediately. And it happens to be much faster for us to resolve.
“Things like dynamic handling we’re working on, we’re talking to the factory on a regular basis, nevertheless it’s probably going to be the subsequent generation of models once you see those improvements come through.”
Chery is fleshing out its namesake brand’s lineup this yr, before introducing the separate Jaecoo brand early next yr.
Having addressed some teething issues for the reason that re-launch of Chery Down Under, Mr Harris expects a smoother introduction for Jaecoo.
“I believe we learned some good lessons with Chery around local testing and tuning, that was a speed bump for us to start with and Jaecoo will profit from that,” explained Mr Harris.
“We’re overcoming those issues now and our volume is growing so much.
“Jaecoo won’t have that speed bump, so we expect it to get off to a faster start from the start.”
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
