Chris Clayton, who considers himself “part of the old guard there now”, has been working for the Omoda and Jaecoo brands, both subsidiaries of Chery Automotive, since November last year, after previous roles at Hyundai.
He is now part of a team of four, as he explained: “I’ve got a northern manager, a southern manager, and a central coordinator role, to help with the different channels and assist with the dealer network and internal stakeholders.”
March saw the initial UK launch for the company’s first model, the Omoda 5, which will be available in ICE and EV versions. Clayton has done everything to prepare for that, with the first cars scheduled to arrive in July.
He said: “All the data providers have seen the ICE and EV versions – and they liked it. The RV has just been released and seems like a pretty good mark in the sand, to be honest.
“They’re up there with Hyundai and Kia, and I know opinion on vehicles can change very quickly, but it’s a foundation element that we needed to get done – and we’ve got it done – which is really good.”
This is all in advance of a fleet launch event later this month, at MIRA in Nuneaton, for the key RV setters, rental companies, and Motability. They are all coming to see the vehicle, so they can set their own positions. Although, a deal with Octopus Electric Vehicles has already been announced.
Clayton’s key fleet strategy, he explained, is around brand awareness. He said: “I want to get cars into national networks, so that people can see them. I want to see someone from Arval or Leaseplan with one of our vehicles.
“We’re looking to have eight key fleet channels, from Motability to corporate, rental, broker, white label, and dealer car schemes, that will all sit under myself and my team.”
In terms of a pricing strategy, according to Clayton, the company has looked at how previous new entrants have come into the market from China.
He said: “The case studies that I’ve completed on some of the new Chinese entrants show that if you go with zero discount, you get zero sales. We need competitive pricing to get people to open the door, and look at the seat – before sitting in it!
“The features and benefits of our vehicles are better than a lot of the traditional manufacturers, and the new entrants, but I’m not naïve enough to think we can charge a premium to start with! We can build on that, but we do need to get buyers in.
“I spent six-years before this with the Hyundai Group, and it was the same message for them – and they’ve been in the market a lot longer than us! We need to get people to drive them.
“Rob (Durrant, PR Manager) and I have been working on an extensive demo fleet programme, so we can get those out to big corporates, leasing companies, influencers, media, basically whoever we want to, to help with our brand awareness campaign, that will no doubt go on for three or four years.”
Clayton expects to be supplying a mixture of ICE and EV cars to fleet in the UK via the company’s dealer network.
He said: “If you look down the rental channel, the majority won’t take any EV vehicle. Rental is not going to be a massive part of what we sell, but it is a key part to getting people who don’t either know our brand or haven’t specifically chosen our brand to drive our cars.
“We’re speaking to everyone, the northern and southern teams have their patches, and are working with the key funders, with their RV setters, so we can get on their quotation systems, which I will see as a big win, considering some of the other new entrants have taken 12 months to do that! We will be live on their systems before launch. It sounds a bit crazy, but it’s the right way to do it.”
