Can Chinese automaker Changan succeed in the UK?

Chinese car brand Changan landed in the UK in September 2025, and the automaker means business. In the latest episode of WhichEV's It's Good To Torque podcast, host James Morris sits down with Changan UK Managing Director Nic Thomas to dissect the biggest story in motoring: the Chinese automotive onslaught.

Discover the Deepal SO7, Changan's promising first family EV, re-engineered for the European driver in just three months! How are Chinese companies outpacing legacy brands? We discuss their rapid-fire decision-making, the battle for affordable small EVs, and the urgent need to fix Britain's charging infrastructure.

Tune in to understand why the EV market is "living in exciting, really exciting times", and why Chinese brands are angling for a huge slice of the pie. 

Transcript

00:00:14 James

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the new podcast from Which EV.

00:00:18 James

It's good to talk.

00:00:19 James

I'm James Morris, editor of Which EV, and today, instead of my co-host Tim, we've got a special guest in the shape of Nick Thomas, UK Managing Director and VP of Marketing at Changan, a Chinese car brand that has just entered the UK market.

00:00:33 James

In the last episode, Tim and I talked more generally about the onslaught of Chinese brands in the UK market.

00:00:39 James

So now we continue that theme with one of the newest entries to the market, although not quite the newest because that would be Geely which launched in the UK.

00:00:47 James

First though, maybe you can tell us a little about yourself, Nick.

00:00:50 James

I believe you've had extended periods with Ford and Nissan as well.

00:00:54 Nic

Hi James, thanks for having me on.

00:00:56 Nic

Yes, I've been in the car industry for more than 25 years.

00:01:01 Nic

I started with Ford,

00:01:02 Nic

actually not in the UK, started in Central and Eastern Europe, setting up distributors, worked my way through various European countries with Ford before I came back to the UK and did a stint as, what was I, an after sales district manager, and then worked my way up through the marketing team to become head of marketing operations for Ford UK.

00:01:26 Nic

Then I went

00:01:27 Nic

around the world a bit for a while.

00:01:29 Nic

So I left with Ford to go off to Russia when that was in the early 2010s, when that was the next big market and worked there for a while in Ford's joint venture with Ford Sollers before I joined Nissan in 2012, similarly working in different locations for Nissan around Europe in their European headquarters and running some of the smaller countries.

00:01:52 Nic

Before I did, I did four years in Japan with Nissan.

00:01:55 Nic

So I was head of the global EV business unit.

00:01:59 Nic

So working based out of Japan, but working very much around the world to launch Leaf and prepare Nissan's next generation of electric vehicles, as well as working around the world to build up some of the ancillary parts of an electric vehicle business.

00:02:14 Nic

So working on V2G technologies and charger corporations and things like that, as well as the more traditional sales and marketing.

00:02:21 Nic

So that's my background.

00:02:23 Nic

I joined Chang'an in beginning of last year, beginning of 2024.

00:02:27 Nic

I was the first European commercial employee for Chang'an, setting up the business firstly in Munich, which is our European headquarters.

00:02:36 Nic

So setting up the European business there, hiring A-team, getting offices set up, you know, getting companies registered, getting, you know, amalgation and banks and

00:02:48 Nic

parts warehouses and all of those things set up.

00:02:50 Nic

And then since the beginning of this year, I've been based in the UK, as you said, as the UK managing director.

00:02:56 Nic

So again, building up our national sales company in the UK, building up a team here.

00:03:01 Nic

I've got a brilliant team around me now, which is really great.

00:03:05 Nic

It's very hard to do a lot of these things on your own, but managed to recruit a really strong UK team of very experienced people.

00:03:13 James

So I've been to China a few times and I think a lot of people out who haven't had that experience don't quite realise just how many brands there are in China and how massive so many of them are.

00:03:25 James

But Changan is a particularly important one because it's, you know, as far as I understand it, was the first Chinese company to actually manufacture cars in China.

00:03:35 James

So maybe you could tell us a little bit about the history of the company.

00:03:40 Nic

Sure.

00:03:40 Nic

Yeah, no, you're right.

00:03:41 Nic

I mean, if you haven't been to China, it's an incredible eye opener in the 1st place.

00:03:45 Nic

There's absolutely mega cities.

00:03:48 Nic

Chongqing, which is the home of Chang'an, is a city of more than 35 million people.

00:03:54 Nic

It's an ultra modern, ultra high tech, ultra safe and clean and fascinating place to be.

00:03:59 Nic

I genuinely really enjoy going there.

00:04:01 Nic

It's beautiful, set in the mountains of the Yangtze valleys as well.

00:04:05 Nic

So go to China.

00:04:06 Nic

I genuinely love large bits of it.

00:04:09 Nic

And as you say, there's lots of car companies as well as mega cities that you'd never heard of.

00:04:14 Nic

There's car companies there you've probably not heard of yet.

00:04:17 Nic

And Chang'an is the first one.

00:04:19 Nic

So we were established as a trading company in the 1850s, but started making firstly light trucks, basically a Suzuki type Jeep in the 1950s and then passenger cars in the 1980s.

00:04:34 Nic

So Chang'an was the first car company in China.

00:04:39 James

I mean, I was lucky enough to be at the launch of the brand in Europe in Frankfurt a few months ago.

00:04:43 James

And there's some very exciting vehicles, which, well, we'll talk about that in a bit.

00:04:48 James

So what I think to remember, doesn't the home city of Changan have like a railway station that's actually kind of up on the upper floor of a building, you kind of arrive kind of on floor 20 or something.

00:05:01 James

It's all very high tech, like something like Blade Runner.

00:05:04 Nic

Yeah, because Chongqing is built, so it's just down river from the Three Gorges Dam.

00:05:09 Nic

So you've got very, it's a mountainous region with huge rivers, the Yangtze and the Zhenglu.

00:05:14 Nic

confluence in the centre of Chongqing.

00:05:17 Nic

So you've got these incredibly, high mountains and steep valleys going down to the rivers.

00:05:23 Nic

And it's a, they call it the 8D city.

00:05:25 Nic

So anyone who's on Instagram or TikTok, you're probably familiar with it already, even if you don't know the name.

00:05:30 Nic

Because you go into a subway and you go down the deepest, you know, the most longest, deepest escalators you've ever been down, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down, get on a train.

00:05:41 Nic

And then two stations later, you're on a bridge over a gorge and it's like, hang on,

00:05:45 Nic

I just went deep underground and now I'm up on a bridge over a gorge.

00:05:48 Nic

It's a really confusing city to navigate at first because, just kind of sensorially because of that.

00:05:56 Nic

And as you say, yeah, there's famous pictures of trains going through buildings, buildings that have been built around train tracks and things like that.

00:06:04 Nic

And yeah, but it's fascinating.

00:06:06 Nic

You go in and you're walking on the street, you go into a building on

00:06:09 Nic

what's ostensibly the ground floor and then you look out the window on the other side and you're on the 20th floor or you're on the roof terrace because it's all built on so many different levels.

00:06:17 James

I think that's very indicative of China in general.

00:06:19 James

I mean, I mean, I'm going to put you on the spot here.

00:06:21 James

Do you know what the population is of that city?

00:06:24 Nic

It's more than 35 million.

00:06:25 Nic

Yeah, exactly.

00:06:26 James

And actually, yeah.

00:06:28 James

I mean, the thing is that I don't suppose very many people, outside people who know about your company,

00:06:34 James

ever even heard of that city and it's hardly alone in being that big.

00:06:39 James

I mean, that's the incredible thing about China, isn't it?

00:06:42 James

There's so many cities that are frankly bigger than any European city.

00:06:48 James

They have multiple and they all have their own kind of own

00:06:52 James

than at all, but many of them have the home manufacturer.

00:06:55 James

for example, Hangzhou, Gee Li, you've got, I would guess, SAR, Sike is kind of more Shanghai kind of area, and you guys have your home city.

00:07:06 James

And I think, you know, this is, it's a different world, you know.

00:07:10 James

So, I mean, you know, you've worked for an American brand in the shape of Ford, you've worked for a Japanese one in Japan.

00:07:18 James

I think it's kind of interesting that you've also spent time

00:07:22 James

building brands in Russia, which kind of is, I guess the Chinese are still operational there.

00:07:28 James

What is, how do you feel like working for a Chinese brand actually compares now to those other nationalities of companies that you've been experienced with?

00:07:39 Nic

Yeah, I mean, I've worked for, I've worked for primarily three different companies, albeit I've worked in eight different countries for those companies.

00:07:48 Nic

And I think, each country, sorry, each company has its own culture, but each, each country that you work in as working for Nissan in Austria was incredibly different to working for Nissan in Japan, as you might imagine.

00:08:03 Nic

I think, what amazes me, incredibly impresses me about working for a Chinese company is the speed of thinking, the speed of decision making, the speed of learning.

00:08:13 Nic

You know, when I was, you know, when I started with Chang'an,

00:08:18 Nic

And there were lots of very, very smart, very capable Chinese people I was working with, but they didn't know the European market.

00:08:24 Nic

And they were very open.

00:08:25 Nic

They didn't know the European market.

00:08:27 Nic

So concepts like a residual value or a monthly payment, which are just not part of the Chinese industry, they didn't know.

00:08:33 Nic

But literally, we would talk about it on a Friday.

00:08:36 Nic

And I'd say, I'd explain, this is what a residual value is.

00:08:38 Nic

This is why it's important.

00:08:39 Nic

This is how you manage it.

00:08:41 Nic

And people who'd never heard of this before would sort of sit there and go, okay, interesting.

00:08:45 Nic

On a Monday morning,

00:08:47 Nic

They've come back and they say, right, so tell me in detail, what's your remarketing strategy and how are you going to manage your sales channel mix?

00:08:54 Nic

And we've been thinking about, you know, we've been studying this part and they'd spent the weekend using ChatGPT or whatever to learn about these very complex topics.

00:09:05 Nic

Yeah, or deepseek and learn about these incredibly complex topics.

00:09:09 Nic

And I think the application of individuals and the expectation that they want to learn, they want to move forward, and that's how they individually and therefore their companies are going to be successful is remarkable.

00:09:20 Nic

And I think it's rewiring my brain.

00:09:24 Nic

I've been around a long time, but I deliberately chose to join.

00:09:29 Nic

Nobody poached me.

00:09:30 Nic

I chose to join Chang'an because I wanted to be part of that

00:09:34 Nic

what I think, frankly, is a revolution in the car industry and learn how to be part of this new world.

00:09:40 Nic

And it's rewiring my brain and the opportunity and the challenge is amazing.

00:09:48 Nic

And

00:09:49 Nic

What I think is possible and how quickly I think a car company can move and how quickly I think a car company has grown has fundamentally changed in the last 12 months of being in this company.

00:09:59 Nic

And as somebody who's nearly 50 years old, that's quite a remarkable thing to have your preconceptions totally changed in a year is quite something.

00:10:10 James

Yeah, I mean, I've talked to Stefan Zielef a fair few times, he's a

00:10:16 James

the VP of Global Design over at Geely, and he seems to really love working for a Chinese company because, the level of bureaucracy is just so much less.

00:10:24 James

they just let you get on with them.

00:10:27 James

the speed is just incredible.

00:10:30 James

So, the, but let's talk about the cars now.

00:10:33 James

So, you've you've just launched a car in UK.

00:10:37 James

I was at the European launch of it in Frankfurt.

00:10:41 James

S07.

00:10:43 James

How are things going with that?

00:10:44 James

Maybe you can kind of talk about that car, why it's the first one to come to the UK, kind of what do you think is really special about it?

00:10:52 James

How are sales going so far?

00:10:55 Nic

Yeah, thanks.

00:10:56 Nic

Yeah, so we launched the we launched the company in March in Frankfurt, as you said, and we've launched in the UK in September.

00:11:02 Nic

We've got about 20 dealerships open now.

00:11:04 Nic

We'll have 60 open by the end of the year.

00:11:06 Nic

So they're coming very fast to the market and very reputable dealers all around the UK.

00:11:10 Nic

And it's a dealer-led model.

00:11:12 Nic

We're on sale now.

00:11:14 Nic

The first customer reactions are really fantastic.

00:11:17 Nic

And that's very exciting.

00:11:19 Nic

I think for me, so the SOS, the Chang'an D-Pal SO7 is, it's a large family vehicle.

00:11:24 Nic

So it's a similar size to a Tesla Model Y or a Hyundai Ioniq 5, that sort of thing.

00:11:31 Nic

But what's

00:11:32 Nic

What I think is unique for us is firstly, there's one price.

00:11:35 Nic

There's no confusing specifications and strange grade walks and things.

00:11:39 Nic

There's one price.

00:11:40 Nic

It's the best car we can build.

00:11:41 Nic

It's got absolutely everything on it.

00:11:43 Nic

And that price is 39,990 pounds.

00:11:46 Nic

So just under that important tax break for people.

00:11:50 Nic

And of course, it's fully available with all of the finance options, PCP, contract hire, et cetera, through our dealers and leasing channels.

00:11:59 Nic

I think they're, you know,

00:12:01 Nic

Three things that I really love about the car.

00:12:03 Nic

Number one, the style of it.

00:12:05 Nic

there's a lot of cars that look very similar these days and don't really stand out.

00:12:10 Nic

The SO7 really looks beautiful.

00:12:14 Nic

It stands out.

00:12:14 Nic

It's got a really nice sort of sharp nose design at the front, really sleek styling.

00:12:21 Nic

It looks like a, you know, a smart car.

00:12:24 Nic

And it really stands out.

00:12:26 Nic

And I've been driving one around the UK for quite a while.

00:12:28 Nic

And I get stopped a lot with people asking me, what is it?

00:12:31 Nic

Where can I get one?

00:12:32 Nic

It looks fabulous.

00:12:33 Nic

So that's number one.

00:12:35 Nic

Number 2, you get in and the quality of the interior, you know, it's all vegan leather, which is the greatest rebranding of, there's ever been done vegan leather, but the interior looks fantastic.

00:12:48 James

We don't call it PVC anymore.

00:12:50 Nic

Absolutely.

00:12:51 Nic

The, it looks, it's really minimalist, it's really sleek, it's really, and it's really comfortable.

00:12:57 Nic

I'm not supposed to say this, but actually my favorite feature of the car is the seats.

00:13:01 Nic

I do a lot of miles and, you know, the lumbar support and the seats are incredibly comfortable, which is great.

00:13:07 Nic

And then, you know, it's a high-tech cabin, as you might expect from a Chinese car.

00:13:12 Nic

But I think uniquely, it's really built around the customer.

00:13:16 Nic

It's built with a customer in mind.

00:13:17 Nic

It is intuitive technology.

00:13:19 Nic

Yes, there's a big screen in the centre, but it tilts towards you to meet you.

00:13:24 Nic

can choose to position it in a different way, but it's not you're having to look down away from the road to see the screen.

00:13:31 Nic

It's right next to your eye line without being intrusive.

00:13:33 Nic

You've got a beautiful augmented reality head-up display, which has got all of the key information for you.

00:13:39 Nic

You've got switches, you've got stalks around your steering wheel.

00:13:43 Nic

So you can control very easily the things that you want.

00:13:46 Nic

And then on the screen itself, it's really simple, really intuitive to use.

00:13:49 Nic

is you've got the toolbar along the bottom with your main features, just like on an iPad or something.

00:13:55 Nic

But equally, just like on an iPad, it's configurable.

00:13:58 Nic

So you can choose if you want to what are the most important things for you.

00:14:02 Nic

can tailor it to all of your needs if you want to.

00:14:06 Nic

There's a voice control system.

00:14:09 Nic

There's all sorts of things that, all sorts of intelligent features which you can use and you can customize everything in the vehicle if you want to.

00:14:17 Nic

But if you just want to get in and drive off and turn on the indicators and turn on the wipers and those things, that's all very much like any normal car.

00:14:25 Nic

You just get in and you've got your wipers stalked, you've got your indicators.

00:14:28 Nic

Those things are there for you.

00:14:29 Nic

don't have to spend hours looking through menus.

00:14:33 Nic

It's really simple to use.

00:14:36 Nic

And I think what's equally important is that it wasn't like that when we first got it.

00:14:41 Nic

As I said, I've been driving the car for a year.

00:14:43 Nic

And we sort of alluded to China's speed and the speed with which things can get done.

00:14:49 Nic

We have the brilliant advantage of Chang'an for, because we've been a car company for a very long time, we've already got a global footprint.

00:14:56 Nic

So the cars themselves are designed in Italy.

00:14:59 Nic

We've got a design studio in Turin.

00:15:00 Nic

You've had that for a while, haven't you?

00:15:02 Nic

You've been there for 20 years.

00:15:04 James

Yeah.

00:15:05 Nic

So those designers have designed the DeepL SO7, which is why it stands out, which is why it looks really beautiful.

00:15:11 Nic

And then we've got an engineering centre in the UK.

00:15:13 Nic

That's where I'm based.

00:15:14 Nic

And we've got 100 engineers doing powertrain R&D in the UK.

00:15:17 Nic

They've been there for 15 years working on building Chang up to be this global automotive player.

00:15:23 Nic

And what they did, you know, as soon as we got cars in the UK last year, they drove the car and said, wow, this is a beautiful

00:15:28 Nic

car.

00:15:29 Nic

It's, the quality is amazing.

00:15:31 Nic

The technology is amazing.

00:15:32 Nic

The suspension does not work for the UK.

00:15:34 Nic

And I thought, wow, we've got a big problem here.

00:15:36 Nic

And they said, no, we haven't.

00:15:37 Nic

This is China's speed.

00:15:38 Nic

So they did a recalibration exercise and they re-engineered, rebuilt the suspension and put it into production in three months.

00:15:46 Nic

The same with, you know, some of the technology features, which were more suited to the Chinese consumer.

00:15:52 Nic

not only language, but usability of the system.

00:15:55 Nic

And they rebuilt it.

00:15:56 Nic

They recalibrated all of the ADAS systems and they changed a lot of the software features in a matter of weeks and put it all into production.

00:16:06 Nic

So now it's really thoughtful about what a UK and a European consumer would want.

00:16:11 Nic

The ADAS systems, for example, you drive some cars and they're beeping and buzzing and interfering all the time.

00:16:16 Nic

Ours are not.

00:16:17 Nic

I was driving with a journalist the other day and they said, they assumed I'd turned it all off and I said, no, it just, it only intervenes when it needs to because you're in danger.

00:16:25 Nic

It's not going to do it constantly and annoy you.

00:16:28 James

A lot of journalists, when they first get into a test drive car, the first thing they do is just turn off all the data features.

00:16:33 James

I've noticed that at launches, now usually part of the process of actually explaining the car was to tell the journalists how they can turn it off and how they can maybe even add it to a kind of quick key function in the car.

00:16:47 Nic

Yeah, and now they're easy to turn off if you want to, but most people don't because they don't even notice they're there until you are actually not concentrating and you veer out of a lane.

00:16:57 James

Yeah, I mean, I personally, when I'm test driving a car, I don't turn that off because I don't think that your average driver is going to do that either.

00:17:04 James

So, you need to actually get a sense of it.

00:17:07 James

And I think it's really important to kind of

00:17:10 James

you know what you're saying about working on the kind of base level so it's not too irritating because you know that some of these ADAS functions are actually I think they're borderline creating a problem you know if they if something lane keep assists really aggressively knocks your steering wheel when you go straight close to the lane line that's actually going to that could surprise people and make them a

00:17:34 James

jittery in their driving.

00:17:36 Nic

I was having that conversation with Thatcham a little while ago because we've been setting up this business in the UK for a long time.

00:17:41 Nic

So we've already got, we've been working with people like Thatcham who work with the insurance industry and make sure that the cars are repairable.

00:17:49 Nic

It's really important before you start selling a car that you've done all of that work in the background.

00:17:53 Nic

So repair industry is ready so that you've got a parts warehouse, so you've got a dealer network, a bank, all of these support systems that car companies need.

00:18:01 Nic

And not every Chinese car company has done that before they launch.

00:18:04 Nic

but we've been working very hard in the background to get everything ready.

00:18:08 Nic

And I was talking to Thatcher and they said, well, the problem is not the rules, the problem is not the standards, the problem is the implementation.

00:18:14 Nic

There's good technology and there's bad technology.

00:18:17 Nic

And I think our engineers have done an incredible job to make a really important safety system, not, you know, so that it's not annoying, but it's there to protect you.

00:18:27 Nic

And that's what they should, that's what the system should do without constantly interfering.

00:18:32 James

So what are you most excited about?

00:18:34 James

with the Chang An brand.

00:18:37 Nic

It's personally, I'm most excited about the opportunity to show these cars to people and just, to get people in behind the wheel, because when we do, they are, if they don't know Chang An, and if they don't know Chinese car companies, they're sort of almost overwhelmed with how sophisticated the cars are, how beautiful they look, how comfortable they are, how high the quality is, and then, yeah, how

00:19:00 Nic

They are high tech, but in a really usable way.

00:19:04 Nic

And that's before you, that's just for your everyday driving.

00:19:07 Nic

That's before you get into things like you've got a gesture recognition camera inside the car.

00:19:10 Nic

So just by moving your hands around, you can turn the music on or off or skip the tracks or pick up your phone or to even take a selfie with the inbuilt cameras.

00:19:19 Nic

You've got a dash cam built in with four different views.

00:19:22 Nic

You've got the next generation of parking cameras so that you've got what you would consider a normal, even a 360 degree view, but this is

00:19:30 Nic

You've got a 540 view, so you can see from every angle, you can select the angles.

00:19:35 Nic

You've even got a 3D model of the car, which sounds pointless, but in a multi-story car park where you've got some really tight turns around concrete barriers and things, it is incredibly useful.

00:19:45 Nic

to be able to use those kind of things.

00:19:46 Nic

Dash cam is brilliant for your insurance rating.

00:19:48 Nic

There's so much technology built in, but as I said, really built around the consumer, really built in a usable way.

00:19:56 Nic

And that's what I'm most excited about, is showing that to customers because when they, and dealers, we've been working with them for a long time, because they're so excited.

00:20:05 Nic

You know, we had to, I had my first dealer meeting at our R&D centre in Birmingham, had about 30 dealers there in July last year.

00:20:13 Nic

And some of these people I've known for 25 years, and it was Ford dealers or things like that.

00:20:19 Nic

And they came along and they were, firstly, they were really impressed by the R&D centre.

00:20:23 Nic

And then you show them the car and they're really impressed by the design.

00:20:25 Nic

And then they sit inside and still now they're talking to me, oh, that's the one with the campfire inside, isn't it?

00:20:31 Nic

Because on the screen, you can put a great big campfire and you can throw fireworks and fuel canisters in.

00:20:36 Nic

And it makes, you know, it uses the 14 speaker premium sound system to make it sound like you're in a campfire and it uses the heated seats.

00:20:43 Nic

and the air conditioning to warm you up.

00:20:46 Nic

And those kind of things, which are, they don't have a practical function, but they're just fun things.

00:20:52 Nic

And that's the great thing about these cars is you can add some fun to them.

00:20:56 Nic

You can add some spirit to them.

00:20:58 Nic

And there's equally, there's the snow function, which will use the ventilated seats and cool you down and all these sorts of things that people really remember and they stand out.

00:21:07 James

Yeah, I mean, differentiation is a difficult thing.

00:21:08 James

I mean, I think when I went to the DeepL S07 launch, I think that was part of a series.

00:21:15 James

I think I test drove 5 different mid-sized Chinese electric SUVs.

00:21:20 James

It was like C-Line 7, Smart Hashtag 5.

00:21:23 James

I think I'd driven the Amoda 5, A5 around that time as well.

00:21:31 James

There's one other, oh yes, the Zika

00:21:34 James

Seven X was the other one.

00:21:36 James

And I think in terms of, I agree with you, the deeper SO7 in terms of outer appearance was up there, less generic looking, but much more attractive.

00:21:48 James

So

00:21:50 James

Also, at the launch of that car that I was in Frankfurt, there was quite a lot of other cars from the Changan brand and other Changan brands.

00:21:58 James

I mean, obviously, you brought over the Depal as a Depal branded car, and then there's the Changan brand itself, and there's Avatar.

00:22:08 James

And one car that I'm sorry to hear you probably not bringing to the UK is what's it called, the E07, which is kind of a transformer that goes from

00:22:20 James

an SUV, a very large SUV, and turns itself into a pickup, which is...

00:22:26 Nic

Yeah, I mean, that's the advantage of a group like Chang'an.

00:22:29 Nic

We're a huge group.

00:22:30 Nic

We've got probably 40 or 50 different cars on sale in China and around the world.

00:22:35 Nic

You know, we don't just sell in China.

00:22:36 Nic

We're very big in Southeast Asia, in the Middle East, in some parts of South America.

00:22:42 Nic

And there are so many different cars that we could bring.

00:22:46 Nic

We want to, we're picking the right ones to bring to the UK, the ones that are going to resonate best with the consumers, we think.

00:22:52 Nic

Our roads are smaller, our needs are different.

00:22:56 Nic

And so we probably won't bring the EO7.

00:22:59 Nic

It's a massive SUV.

00:23:01 Nic

It's an incredible thing, as you say.

00:23:03 Nic

It's a real transformer car that shifts from a very large, spacious SUV into

00:23:08 Nic

it's got a sliding glass roof that effectively turns the boot into a pickup bed, which is, great for a certain type of lifestyle customer in some parts of the world, but we'll probably not bring it here.

00:23:20 Nic

We're more focused on, you know, mid-size family SUVs and we'll get down into smaller models quite soon as well.

00:23:26 Nic

And that will be across a range of both EV and hybrid powertrains.

00:23:31 Nic

I think one thing that perhaps confuses people about Chinese companies is the range of brands, the range of names.

00:23:37 Nic

And that's very much a feature of the Chinese market.

00:23:40 Nic

It tends to be the company will invent a new product and therefore go, oh, we've got a new technology, let's make a new badge, let's make a new name for it.

00:23:48 Nic

A bit like we do with model names really in Europe.

00:23:52 Nic

But we've really simplified that with Chang'an, so everything will just be called Chang'an.

00:23:56 Nic

You can look for a Chang'an showroom, you can look for a Chang'an website, Chang'an social media, Chang'an adverts, everything will be Chang'an.

00:24:03 Nic

We'll sell models from the company from both our Chang'an Nivo range and our Deepal range, but that will just be a model name and we'll use the Chang'an badge for everything.

00:24:12 James

I'm going to mention this in the last podcast, but I've been reading a book called Driving the Dragon recently, which is from a

00:24:19 James

but I think a British journalist who's been covering the Chinese car market for 20 years and has seen the growth of it.

00:24:25 James

And one of his criticisms is just how confusing the branding and also how different cars, they might have one brand in China and then be sold under a different brand in external markets.

00:24:36 James

So, you know, you have, I mean, I think that springs to mind was I drove this car called an LDV D90, which is a psych car in

00:24:48 James

It was a substitute hire car in Australia, which I believe is called Maxus elsewhere.

00:24:53 James

And Maxus is a was a sub a kind of a van brand in the UK and it's kind of was acquired with a kind of British.

00:25:01 James

So you can see how confusing all of this.

00:25:03 James

And it used to be commercial vehicles and now they're doing SUVs and

00:25:07 James

Makes your head explode.

00:25:08 James

I mean, my first experience.

00:25:09 Nic

I don't think they're the first ones with that.

00:25:11 Nic

I mean, the Nissan X-Trail and Rogue or Pathfinder or Petrol Ramada, you know, same car, different name.

00:25:18 Nic

And, you know, plenty of European or Western brands have different names in different places, Voxer and Opel.

00:25:25 Nic

It's consumers are smarter than we think they are sometimes.

00:25:28 James

My first experience of your brand was actually driving a white pickup truck in Saudi Arabia called a Changan, which I have to admit wasn't a very good car, but it did the job.

00:25:40 James

But I was just in Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago and everybody was driving, I think it was the Nevo, did you say, the that small SUV?

00:25:48 Nic

I think they're called Uni and is there, there's the Nevo is the new electric ones and then there are the Uni series as well.

00:25:56 James

But it looked, I mean that looked incredibly nice.

00:25:58 James

I mean, what you could see of it underneath the dust because it was very, very dusty in the desert in Saudi Arabia.

00:26:02 James

But you know, that was a bit of a contrast where the white pickup was basically here you can have a you can have a Toyota

00:26:12 James

Hilux, but for half the price.

00:26:14 James

This seemed like it was a massive step up.

00:26:18 James

So what do you think?

00:26:21 James

Does it kind of change tunes a little bit?

00:26:23 James

You know, you've launched in Europe, you've moved to the UK pretty quickly.

00:26:28 James

So, and this is something I've noticed over the last year or so, is that when I was going to European Chinese brand launches,

00:26:37 James

last year or the year before, usually the answer was we're thinking about the UK and now it's kind of like, I think it was very telling that I was at the launch of the Geely EX5 last night and they launched that first in the UK and then they're going to look at continental Europe.

00:26:54 James

So what do you think is so exciting about the UK market for Chinese car brands?

00:27:01 Nic

I think plenty of brands have launched in Europe, but not come to the UK in the past.

00:27:06 Nic

And because right hand drive is a big barrier and homologation costs are different and things like that.

00:27:11 Nic

For Chang'an, it was always in our plan to come to the UK.

00:27:14 Nic

Obviously, with an R&D centre here, it's our second home.

00:27:17 Nic

So it's absolutely been in our plan for a long time.

00:27:21 Nic

We need to get it right.

00:27:22 Nic

We need to set up properly from the beginning.

00:27:24 Nic

As I said, so we're not rushing to the market.

00:27:26 Nic

We've been preparing this for a long time.

00:27:28 Nic

I think the UK as a market is very attractive because we are experts in electric vehicles, we're experts in hybrid vehicles, which some of it, if you look at the big markets in Europe, Italy, Spain, that are not so maybe hybrid but not so friendly to EVs, Germany and France are incredibly brand loyal, takes a long time to build.

00:27:55 Nic

And then

00:27:56 Nic

the markets that are friendly to hybrids and EVs like Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, we're already present in.

00:28:02 Nic

And we're doing very well in those markets with our new technologies, which is great.

00:28:07 Nic

And then, you know, the UK is a sweet spot because it's a very large market.

00:28:11 Nic

It's the second biggest market overall and the biggest market for EVs in Europe.

00:28:15 Nic

And also very welcoming of new brands.

00:28:18 Nic

We've always been welcoming of new brands.

00:28:19 Nic

We might think we might not think we are, but you know, I've been working in the UK market, as I said, more than 25 years.

00:28:25 Nic

And the

00:28:26 Nic

the preference for brands and the market shares have evolved a great deal over that time, changed a great deal.

00:28:33 Nic

And UK consumers have always gone where they think the best cars are.

00:28:39 Nic

And right now, those best cars are coming from companies like Chang An.

00:28:44 James

Why do you think that is?

00:28:45 James

I mean, I mean, you know, do I think at the moment, the kind of standout is the JQ7, which has been absolutely selling like hotcakes, you know, selling, I think it was 4th in sales at last

00:28:56 James

last month, outselling family favourites like the Hyundai Tucson, why are Brits so happy to just kind of say, oh, here's a new brand.

00:29:08 James

Let's give it a try.

00:29:08 Nic

I think there's a combination of factors.

00:29:11 Nic

Clearly, we don't have any British-owned brands anymore.

00:29:16 Nic

Even people say to me, they'll name what they think is a British owned brand and then you have to remind them that it's owned by an Indian company or a Chinese conglomerate or an American company.

00:29:27 Nic

I think so that has an influence on people.

00:29:31 Nic

People are very interested in though, is it manufactured locally?

00:29:34 Nic

Is there other parts sourced locally and those sorts of things?

00:29:36 Nic

And we will be opening our own manufacturing plants in Europe very soon.

00:29:42 Nic

So that matters to people, but primarily they're looking for a great car.

00:29:45 Nic

And I think, at Chang An, we can offer really great cars at astonishing prices because of the scale of our company, because of the rapidity of our technological development, because of the investment that we make, we can offer.

00:29:59 Nic

really attractive cars at really attractive prices.

00:30:01 Nic

And I think that's what people are looking for.

00:30:04 Nic

But they want the security as well.

00:30:06 Nic

they need to know that you've got a good residual value, that you're going to be able to back them up with a finance offer, that if something goes wrong, and we know no car's perfect, things go wrong with every car.

00:30:16 Nic

But what matters is how quickly and how efficiently can you fix it?

00:30:19 Nic

And have you got all the infrastructure in place to fix it?

00:30:22 Nic

And that's what people are looking for if they're going to switch to a new brand.

00:30:25 James

So of the Chinese brands, who do you think is the biggest competition?

00:30:29 James

I mentioned I was at the launch of the Geely EX5 last night, which seems like a very strong and well thought out launch.

00:30:37 Nic

Clearly there are a number of Chinese companies that are coming to the UK and to Europe.

00:30:41 Nic

Some are already here, others will come.

00:30:44 Nic

I think the issue is not particularly how do we all compete against each other for a small share of the market.

00:30:50 Nic

I think the issue rather is

00:30:52 Nic

which other brands are going to disappear from the market, which of the legacy brands are going to disappear, or perhaps never, not quite disappear, but really dwindle.

00:31:00 Nic

And as I say, the market shares of established brands have changed markedly in the last 10 years, five years.

00:31:09 Nic

And you look at some really storied brands, some brands that I've loved, and they've got one car in a showroom, and that's all they've got to offer.

00:31:17 Nic

And

00:31:18 Nic

There will be a few more brands that go like that.

00:31:21 Nic

Europe's always been an incredibly competitive market.

00:31:23 Nic

It's always been very hard to make money here.

00:31:26 Nic

And global car companies, whether they're based in America or Japan or Germany or China, will look at it and say, have I got the right product portfolio to really succeed in the European market?

00:31:39 Nic

And they'll make decisions about is it worth me doing a right hand drive version of this car for, am I going to be competitive enough?

00:31:46 Nic

And is there a business case?

00:31:48 Nic

And I think having sat in the boardrooms of a few of those big companies, I know how their minds work.

00:31:55 Nic

And I think they're looking at the UK and Europe right now and saying it's not worth us investing.

00:31:59 Nic

So they will, they'll pull back from the market.

00:32:02 James

So where do you think that leads them traditional brands and, you know, particularly with EVs in the mix?

00:32:09 James

How do you think that's affecting the market?

00:32:13 Nic

I think EVs is another one of those factors which is opening up UK consumers to new brands because consumers are lots more consumers than some of the media think are ready to switch to EVs.

00:32:27 Nic

But they want to go to an EV that's worth their time.

00:32:29 Nic

That's, you know, they know where the best technology is coming from, the best battery technology, the best driving technology.

00:32:35 Nic

and the best cars.

00:32:36 Nic

So they're looking around to different brands and customers who've been very loyal on a PCP cycle for a long, time are now going back to their legacy brand and saying, hang on, you haven't got my next car for me.

00:32:48 Nic

And so they're looking around at other brands.

00:32:51 Nic

And I think that's one of the things that's opening up the market.

00:32:54 Nic

And companies that haven't invested in

00:32:58 Nic

It's not just EV, but EV and plug-in hybrid companies that haven't invested in that are lagging behind.

00:33:03 Nic

It's expensive to invest in that.

00:33:05 Nic

And they have to decide which basket they're going to put their eggs in.

00:33:08 Nic

And if you're strong in the US market, for example, then it's quite hard to justify the EV investment.

00:33:15 Nic

or if you're, Japan is not particularly favorable to EVs, each company is dealing with its own circumstances.

00:33:25 Nic

The benefit of working for a company of the scale of Chang'an is we've got every powertrain.

00:33:31 Nic

We can really focus on, and we can focus on, you know, how do we make the best EV?

00:33:36 Nic

And we don't have to decide, do we make an EV at all?

00:33:41 Nic

And we can partner with the best companies as well.

00:33:44 Nic

we have joint ventures with CATL, the biggest battery company in the world.

00:33:48 Nic

That means we're always at the cutting edge of introducing the latest battery technology.

00:33:53 Nic

But it's not just having the battery technology, it's how do you integrate it into your vehicle?

00:33:56 Nic

How do you use it?

00:33:57 Nic

Well, we're already very far advanced in solid-state battery technologies.

00:34:04 Nic

And that will bring some additional benefits.

00:34:06 Nic

But actually, the level of innovation and change that has been in batteries in the last five years is still remarkable.

00:34:14 Nic

As I said, I've been I've been selling EVs since 2012, which is longer than many.

00:34:19 Nic

And I was head of a global EV business unit back in 2016 when people used to look at me and say, why do you want to be involved with EVs?

00:34:26 Nic

You must be crazy.

00:34:27 Nic

And so I've known about these things for a long time.

00:34:29 Nic

And I even I didn't predict just how much

00:34:34 Nic

more efficient, how much cheaper, how much more range you would be able to get out of a lithium ion battery with the different chemistries.

00:34:43 Nic

It's incredible.

00:34:44 Nic

And we were always predicting there would be crossing points where EVs become cheaper than ICE cars because of the decreasing cost of batteries.

00:34:53 Nic

But I didn't expect it would be quite as dramatic as it is.

00:34:56 Nic

But genuinely, EVs are just, they're much better cars and they're much cheaper to build and to sell now.

00:35:03 James

Does that mean the future is definitely EVs?

00:35:04 James

I mean, we've seen a rise of this, what the Chinese called super hybrids.

00:35:10 Nic

I think that, you know, I've never said EVs were the only technology for everybody.

00:35:14 Nic

I think they're a brilliant technology for an awful lot of people.

00:35:18 Nic

The convenience that I wake up, I'm very fortunate I can park my car at home and charge it at home.

00:35:24 Nic

The convenience of waking up with a fully charged car every morning is incredible.

00:35:27 Nic

And I can, you know, I literally yesterday I did, I got in the car and I drove 250 miles non-stop.

00:35:34 Nic

to go to an early business meeting and then you charge your car while you're in the meeting and then you go somewhere else.

00:35:38 Nic

And that's fantastic.

00:35:41 Nic

And it's just a really, really pleasant drive.

00:35:44 Nic

So for the vast majority of people, they're a brilliant solution.

00:35:48 Nic

But not everybody, you know, we're not about mandating to the customer, you must have this.

00:35:53 Nic

And plenty of people want the interim technology where, you know, with a plug-in hybrid that

00:35:58 Nic

that we'll introduce early next year, you can drive, do all of your daily driving.

00:36:02 Nic

And most people's daily driving is 10, 15 miles, something like that.

00:36:06 Nic

The average UK consumer is driving 8,000 miles a year.

00:36:09 Nic

That means you're really not doing very much daily mileage.

00:36:12 Nic

You can do all of that on the EV.

00:36:13 James

We said about 20 miles a day, basically.

00:36:16 Nic

But actually, and then when you split that up, it's 10 miles a day and then a couple of long trips.

00:36:23 Nic

So for those couple of long trips, you've got the petrol engine there to extend the range.

00:36:28 Nic

But for the vast majority of your daily driving, you're doing that all on an EV, which is a good compromise for some people.

00:36:34 James

We could probably do a whole show on plug-in hybrids and whether they're a good thing, because they're very controversial.

00:36:40 James

But one of the last things I wanted to ask you about was kind of the government

00:36:44 James

Do you think it's really even necessary for strong governmental pushes towards EVs?

00:36:48 James

Because we haven't really had a lot of incentives in the UK.

00:36:51 James

I guess there's a mandate percentages, but you know, the British EV markets in rude health without actually very much in terms of pump priming there.

00:37:02 Nic

I think we haven't had a lot of incentives.

00:37:04 Nic

Clearly, we've got something in place now, although I'd argue they're not perfect.

00:37:10 Nic

But there's a very strong mandate that manufacturers must sell EVs.

00:37:16 Nic

So that's putting all the pressure on the manufacturers and the dealers rather than incentives from government.

00:37:21 Nic

As A taxpayer, frankly, I'm fine with that.

00:37:23 Nic

And I think it's really stimulated the market.

00:37:26 Nic

Where I would like to see more support always is in the charging side of things.

00:37:31 Nic

I think there's been a huge development in motorway charging, on-road charging, which is great and very welcome.

00:37:38 Nic

There's always much more we can do.

00:37:40 Nic

I said, I'm incredibly lucky I get to charge at home.

00:37:43 Nic

But actually, when I worked for Nissan, I didn't charge at home.

00:37:45 Nic

I had charges in the car park at work.

00:37:48 Nic

And I think every public parking space needs

00:37:51 Nic

more and more and more charges because we've focused a lot on destination, on, sorry, sort of on the road charging on motorway service stations, et cetera.

00:38:00 Nic

Destination charging is the key.

00:38:02 Nic

I was driving to a dealer yesterday, so the dealer had a charger.

00:38:05 Nic

So while I was in my two hour meeting, I could charge my car back up and then drive the other way.

00:38:08 Nic

But that's the key to, I don't want to be stopping on the motorway to charge my car.

00:38:14 Nic

I want to be charging my car while I'm doing something else.

00:38:17 Nic

And I don't want that to be an inconvenience.

00:38:18 Nic

And for those people who don't get to charge at home, which is an awful lot of us, they need to be able to charge at work.

00:38:25 Nic

They need to be able to charge on the street.

00:38:26 Nic

They need to be able to charge in car parks, again, where they're doing something else, but they can just leave the car plugged in.

00:38:32 Nic

It shouldn't be a hassle.

00:38:34 Nic

So that's where it's pleasing to see the investment there is from government in that.

00:38:38 Nic

But I always think there's much more that government and companies should do.

00:38:42 Nic

every workplace should be mandated that they have a large range of chargers in their car parts so that people can just plug in while they're at work.

00:38:50 James

And I think that's the mindset change.

00:38:52 James

I think most of the time an EV is just a car, but actually that mindset change of not necessarily having to go somewhere to refuel it, but just kind of having wherever you leave it

00:39:03 James

to be a place where you can recharge it.

00:39:05 James

I think that's the kind of, that's the sea change that people need to make intellectually.

00:39:11 James

So one penultimate question, which is kind of what do you, what are you most excited about for the car market globally in the UK and particularly for Changan over the next couple of years?

00:39:24 Nic

I think the continuing development of EVs is hugely exciting for me and seeing them put into some really exciting applications and I never thought there'd be a really good EV sports car and now there are.

00:39:38 Nic

And seeing that

00:39:40 Nic

the adaptability.

00:39:40 Nic

I think the challenge for us as an industry, we've not done enough small cheap cars and we need to get small cheap EVs onto the marketplace.

00:39:49 Nic

There's some coming through now and we've certainly got some coming through and that's exciting as well.

00:39:53 Nic

So making an EV, you know, the EV offering has been too focused on that kind of mid-segment and we need to make a great EV offering for everybody.

00:40:02 James

Because that's where the return on investment comes from, right?

00:40:05 Nic

It's to do with cost, it's to do with weight, it's to do with return on investment.

00:40:08 Nic

But now with the rapid advance of technology, as I said, the battery price has come down so much now that you can do everything.

00:40:16 Nic

And solid-state will be the next generation of that and reduction, further reductions in weight and efficiency and resource.

00:40:24 Nic

So that's, you know, that's all really, really important.

00:40:26 Nic

My personal dream, my soapbox is, you know,

00:40:32 Nic

is how do we actually integrate the cars with the energy ecosystem?

00:40:36 Nic

Because there's a huge advancement in solar energy, particularly, but in renewable energy overall.

00:40:43 Nic

But that needs flexibility.

00:40:44 Nic

That needs, you can only generate that at certain times of the day in certain ways, which is not always aligned to demand.

00:40:51 Nic

And so you need to build big battery packs to go with that.

00:40:55 Nic

But actually, we shouldn't build big battery packs.

00:40:56 Nic

We should just connect all the batteries in the cars to our houses, to our grid, and we solve 2 problems in one go.

00:41:02 James

And that's another exciting topic, I think, for a future podcast.

00:41:06 James

So the last question is, what's your favourite car of all time?

00:41:10 Nic

Oh, wow.

00:41:12 Nic

The Changan Depal S07.

00:41:13 Nic

No, Good answer.

00:41:14 James

That's mine as well.

00:41:16 Nic

Thank you.

00:41:18 Nic

I don't know.

00:41:19 Nic

My favorite car, my first car was my, I borrowed my mum's Vauxhall Nova 1.2 and I abused it wholeheartedly.

00:41:27 Nic

I absolutely love that car.

00:41:28 James

I had one of those as well.

00:41:30 Nic

Simple as anything, but I guess it was a...

00:41:32 Nic

Yeah, absolutely.

00:41:33 Nic

Yeah.

00:41:34 Nic

1.2 L white four-door.

00:41:36 Nic

I think I did 40 miles an hour in first gear once, which is not advisable.

00:41:41 Nic

But don't tell my mother.

00:41:44 Nic

I had, I love the, I'm a kid of the 80s, so I love the F40 and the Lamborghini Countach.

00:41:50 Nic

But I think actually it's the like the touring cars or the rally cars that stand out.

00:41:54 Nic

Maybe a, yeah, maybe a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth.

00:41:57 James

Oh, that is a, well, that's a great, great car to end our discussion.

00:42:03 Nic

Maybe the Sapphire with the notch back?

00:42:05 James

Yeah.

00:42:06 James

There you go.

00:42:08 James

you're making me making me think of, think about the good old days.

00:42:11 James

I thought you were going to say like a three litre Capri or something, but that's.

00:42:15 James

I'm.

00:42:15 Nic

Not quite old enough for a Capri.

00:42:18 James

No.

00:42:18 James

Unfortunately, I am.

00:42:19 James

So, but let's move swiftly on from that topic.

00:42:23 James

So, thanks so much, Nick.

00:42:25 James

It's been a really great discussion.

00:42:26 James

Really interesting to hear your thoughts about your company and the car market in general.

00:42:30 James

I think we're living in exciting, really exciting times.

00:42:34 James

This is why I love

00:42:35 James

Reporting on the electric vehicle market, it's incredible.

00:42:39 James

But anyway, that's it for today's podcast.

00:42:40 James

We've been James Morris and Nick Thomas, and you've been a great audience.

00:42:44 James

Please subscribe to our podcast if you haven't already, and tune in next time for more chat and analysis of the latest EV stories.

00:42:50 James

Follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Instagram.

00:42:53 James

And of course, please come back to our website, whichev.net, for the most recent news, reviews and features on everything electric vehicle.

00:43:01 James

We'll sign off with a bit more of our theme tune, which is called Gun It to the Red Light by Three Coloured

00:43:05 James

Desert, a local London band.

00:43:07 James

Keep an eye out for forthcoming gigs and apparently there's a new album out in January as well.

00:43:12 James

We'll catch you next time.