In September of this year Chinese OEM, Changan, launched the brand’s all-electric SUV, the Deepal S07, for the UK market. The S07, designed in Turin and engineered at the OEM’s UK-based R&D centre (in Birmingham) starts at GBP39,990. Initially the S07 will be sold through 20 UK dealerships, with a further 30 to follow by the end of the year.
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The S07 supports a range of up to 295 miles and is powered by a 160-kW electric motor, being able to reach 10% to 80% charge in 48 minutes.
We spoke to Nic Thomas, vice president and UK managing director, Changan, to find out more about the OEM’s route to UK market, and what the UK launch means for the company.
Just Auto (JA): Could you provide some background on Changan?
Nic Thomas (NT): Changan as a company is more than 150 years old. It was a trading entity and has been making cars since the 1980s. Changan has grown to nearly three million units a year in scale; this year will probably be more than three million units by the end of the year, which puts us into the top three or four Chinese manufacturers.
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By GlobalDataChangan grew principally through joint ventures, as many Chinese companies did so with Ford, with Mazda, Suzuki, etc. However, since the early 2000s, Changan has put a very strong focus on building its own business, building its own brands. The leadership at the time had the foresight to say, China’s good at lots of things, but we want to harness the best global talent. The best design we think, is in Italy. So, Changan built a design centre in Turin, which has been open since 2003. There are more than 300 designers working in Turin. Then they built an R&D centre in the UK, where the some of the best engineering talent is to be found.
It was about building a global business from the start. Our UK R&D centre has been open for 15 years. It was in Nottingham originally, and now it’s in Birmingham; there are about 100 engineers working in Birmingham now.
For our UK launch we have taken a careful approach. It’s not been rushed to the market. I’ve been in post for nearly two years now and we have a great team getting everything set up. We’ve been working with Changan for more than a year on adapting our vehicles and making sure that they’re as secure and as reliable as they need to be for European customers.
Why has the UK launch waited until 2025 when the R&D centre was already here?
For the last 15 years, it’s been a global powertrain centre of excellence. When they set it up, they hired engineers from other car companies, which were based around the Midlands, some of which are still going, some of which are not, to get that global talent.
The Chinese leadership recognised that it’s a global auto industry, and you need the skills of people from around the world. Some of the best engineering talent is in the UK. Changan really wanted to harness that and put that into the cars that they make in China and sell in China and in other parts of the world.
The engineers reckon that for about 90% of all the cars that we sell in China, the original powertrain engineering was done in the UK by that team. That was the work that the R&D centre was doing.
Similarly, the design centre in Turin, for the Deepal S07, and Deepal S05, which are the first two vehicles for the UK, those were both designed in Italy. Leadership wanted to manufacture cars with great powertrains and great design. They knew they were good at engineering, manufacturing, quality and software, so those things were done largely in China, but they wanted to harness the best of the global talent to build truly great cars.
What does the roadmap into the UK market look like?
We launched the business in the UK last month, and we are opening dealers as we go now. We have 15 open at the minute, and another 30 to open by the end of this year. We’re building up to a network of 60 dealers in the initial phase.
We are going to start with the Changan Deepal S07 and the S05 will come by the end of this year, both as EV models. Then early next year, we’ll introduce both of those as hybrid models as well. We’ll move to a plug-in hybrid model, and then we’ll keep expanding the portfolio. We’ve got a third, smaller SUV to come next year.
If the goal is to make and sell three million vehicles a year, we’ve got all sorts of different varieties of car available, and even commercial vehicles. We won’t bring all of those to the UK, but obviously that gives us a great pool of vehicles to choose from.
Some of the work that we’ve been doing is preparing for the European business. We know we need a mix of powertrains, because Europe’s a complicated place. There’s a difference between what a Norwegian customer wants and a Greek customer wants, The difference is quite stark, and the UK is perhaps halfway in the middle where we want a bit of everything. That’s the great thing about Changan – we can provide a bit of everything. Changan have got a great range of primarily SUV products from large SUVs like the Deepal S07, down to smaller sizes and lower price points, across both EV and hybrid powertrains. We can meet the customers and offer them a fantastic range of choices.
Why was the Deepal S07 the launch car for the UK market?
You need to deliver a statement when you launch. We think it’s a cracking looking car and the interior is high quality, but it’s also packed with the latest technologies in a usable way. It’s really designed around the consumer. Some people are nervous about the level of technology in cars, and the lack of physical buttons. If you get into an S07 it’s immediately familiar. The screen pivots around to greet you and you’ve got the same functionality as a as a modern tablet. You’ve got all your icons on the toolbar; you can drag and drop things into there so you can tailor it to exactly to be what you want it to be to make it usable for you. We’ve also got great technology like an augmented reality heads-up display, which is clear, intuitive and easy to use.
You don’t have to spend hours configuring it, and it’s obvious and easy to find all the critical functions that you need. You can go much further, and you can adapt it and customise every detail of the car, but you don’t have to.
As a brand how do you hope to stand out in the UK market?
There’s a lot of choice; there’s a lot of great vehicles on the UK market. But fundamentally, somebody’s got to want to own it, they’ve got to want to drive it. They’ve got to be happy and proud to park it outside of their house, to take it to work. It has to make you feel good.
Cars are still status symbols for people and they’re still the second biggest purchase that most people make. They want those cars to make them feel good about themselves. If you’re choosing a Chinese car, which is a new choice, you want to feel like you’ve made a good choice. I think having a car that looks brilliant, stands out, and has brilliant technology is a great first step.
As soon as people get inside it, they go: “Wow, the quality of this interior is amazing.” Then they see the technology and they are really impressed.
How has the car been adapted/configured for a European market?
We have achieved a Euro NCAP five-star rating which is important. We want to make sure that people feel safe and trust our cars, but we also know that with that can come overly intrusive ADAS systems, and that’s the real bugbear for people.
They want to know why the car is constantly beeping and buzzing at them – it drives some people crazy. That’s one of the advantages of our UK R&D centre. A lot of the work that they’ve been doing is to calibrate those systems.
They have worked on the ADAS system so that they’re not constantly taking over. They’re not beeping and buzzing at you the whole time. I think they’ve done a fantastic job there to make it really a pleasant vehicle to drive. They have properly calibrated systems so that they’re there when you need them, they’re keeping you safe, but they’re not distracting you and annoying you.
Another adaptation they have done for the UK/Europe is that there’s a very simple pop out menu, you just swipe right on the side of the screen, and immediately you’ve got your lights, your wipers (you’ve got physical stalks for that as well), but everything’s automatic, and with one tap, you can turn off the ADAS systems if you want to.
They have also completely redesigned the suspension to make it much more adapted to UK and European driving characteristics and to the roads. They really adapted the suspension so it’s an engaging and entertaining drive.
What are the long- and short-term goals for Changan?
Looking at the UK and Europe in the next five years, we’re building up our business, we’ve got a full range of vehicles coming over the next two years, and a full range of powertrains.
The UK is our lead market, and we’re building up in Spain and Italy, particularly in some of the Nordic markets, the Netherlands, the more ‘EV friendly countries’. Then bringing in the range of powertrains.
We’re committed to being in Europe, for Europe. That’s a phrase that gets bandied around everywhere, but we really mean it, and we’ve already demonstrated that, because we’ve got a design centre in Italy and an R&D centre in the UK. We’ve got another design centre in Munich for Avatr, which is our premium brand.
We’ll keep growing that base of European teams, European employees, European expertise, and we will move into European manufacturing before 2030 as well.
We’ve got a target to have 60 retail sites this year, and we’ll grow to about 100 sites nationally by 2027, and probably top out at around that level. Then it’s a question of focusing on what we have and improving what we have, rather than constantly looking for the next new thing.
We’re really committed to working with strong dealer partners. Across those 60 sites, growing to 100 that will still be with about 25 dealer group partners.
We have every ambition to be one of the top ten UK brands, whether that’s in the next five years or the next five to seven years. It’s about building the right business, about offering products that customers really want, offering them with a very high level of customer service through trusted dealer partners, and being in this for the long-term.
We’ve got to build a brand. We’ve got to be known for something. We’ve got a great team of professionals that I get to work with, and they’re busy getting all of that moving.
I deliberately took this job because I could see the way the industry was moving, and I wanted to challenge myself. I’m now fortunate to work with a brilliant team of people who similarly, are excited for that challenge. It is challenging setting up a new company, setting up a new brand, but when you see the products, it’s pretty hard not to get excited about it.
