Chinese motor company Chery hopes to start building cars in South Africa by the middle of 2027. The company is due to take over Nissan’s assembly plant in Rosslyn, Tshwane, in June. It will take 12 to 18 months to “recommission and retrofit” the plant, but Chery says it expects the first locally produced vehicles “to roll off the assembly line by mid-2027”.
Nissan Japan announced in January that it would sell Rosslyn, which has built vehicles since 1966 but has been operating well below capacity for several years, as part of a global cost-saving exercise. It identified Chery as the buyer, but the Chinese company was silent on the deal until this week, when global Chery Auto vice-president Charlie Zhang shared some details at the sixth annual South African investment conference in Sandton.
Since re-entering the South African market four years ago, Chery South Africa — comprising the Chery, Omoda, Jaecoo, Lepas and iCaur brands — has steadily grown sales, selling an average 50,000 imported vehicles annually. The broader Chery group also includes the Jetour brand. It says the Rosslyn purchase “signifies a new chapter for the [Chery] brand, transitioning from a successful importer to a committed local manufacturer and investor in the South African economy”.
The product range has not been confirmed, but sources say it is likely to include electric vehicles as well as others powered by petrol and diesel internal combustion engines. Chery will retain most Nissan workers. Zhang says the purchase will create about 3,000 jobs in manufacturing, services and the supply chain. The company, he says, will develop a local network of components suppliers.
It’s not clear yet at what rate Chery will include local content in its South Africa-made vehicles. Another Chinese motor company, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co (BAIC), has a vehicle plant in the Eastern Cape, but most assembly so far has been of imported kits.
Nevertheless, Chery’s Rosslyn investment — even if the company hasn’t said how much it plans to spend — is a sign that Chinese companies are responding to government and industry pressure to put their money where their cars are. Chinese imports have taken a big slice of the South African new vehicle market at the expense of established vehicle and components manufacturers with billions of rand invested in the country. This week, Toyota announced it was spending another R10bn on its South African operations.
Moving from an importer to a manufacturer deepens our roots in this country
— Charlie Zhang
Chinese and Indian brands have denied accusations of “dumping” vehicles (selling them below cost) in South Africa to undercut the prices of local producers. However, reduced demand for South Africa-made products has already cost thousands of jobs at vehicle and components companies, and many more are at risk. The government has said it may consider antidumping measures to protect the local motor industry.
Zhang says: “Moving from an importer to a manufacturer deepens our roots in this country. It allows us to better serve the South African and broader African market, enhances consumer confidence through local presence and aligns our future growth directly with the growth of the local automotive industry.”
Chery and BAIC are not the only Chinese companies looking at local production. Great Wall Motors (GWM), which includes the Haval car brand, is also investigating. It has been linked with the East London assembly plant of Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA), which has plenty of spare manufacturing capacity as export demand for its C-Class car range has diminished.
If GWM does use some of that capacity for its vehicles, it would not be unusual. MBSA has previously built Hondas and Mitsubishis in East London, Nissan made Fiats and Renaults in Rosslyn, and even Volkswagen once assembled Jeeps and Volvos at its Kariega plant in the Eastern Cape. Today, Ford’s plant in Silverton, Tshwane, which once also built Mitsubishis, manufactures the Amarok bakkie for Volkswagen’s South African customers.
Chery’s growing market strength is reinforced by this week’s release of the latest South African new vehicle sales. In March, the Chery brand sold 2,390, Omoda/Jaecoo 1,433 and Jetour 1,768. That’s a combined 5,591 sales, which, if Chery added them all together, would make it the second biggest-selling group in South Africa, after Toyota.
According to the figures from industry association Naamsa, Toyota sold 12,292 cars and commercial vehicles in March, followed by Volkswagen (5,519), Suzuki (5,047), Isuzu (3,142), Hyundai (3,230), Ford (2,810), GWM (2,777), Chery (2,390) and Mahindra (2,280).
In total, the motor industry sold 58,060 new vehicles last month — the best March figure since 2007 and a 17.3% improvement on the 49,500 of March 2025. After three months, the aggregate market, at 161,978, is 12.4% ahead of the 144,132 at the same stage of 2025.
March car sales, at 39,370, were 18.2% ahead of the previous 33,316. After the first quarter of 2026, they are up 12.5%, from 101,776 to 114,515. At the same stage of the year, sales of light commercial vehicles (mainly bakkies and minibuses) have risen by 13%, medium-sized trucks by 2.1%, heavy trucks by 29.1% and extra-heavies by 2.1%.
National Automobile Dealers’ Association chair Brandon Cohen, while describing March sales as “phenomenal”, believes they may have been inflated by pre-emptive buying from customers worried that vehicle prices may rise as the Middle East war increases logistics costs and limits the supply of raw materials and components to global manufacturers.
March, though, was another disappointing month for South African vehicle exports as global economic uncertainty, war and oil industry and general transport chaos drove down demand. Export shipments fell by 5.3%, from 39,499 to 37,388. Year to date, exports are down 11.6%, from 97,615 to 86,281.
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