File:Chery E3, front.jpg

English: Place: Liping, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province

Chinese name: 奇瑞E3 (qíruì E3) Year of launch: 2013

Chery Automobile was the largest Chinese carmaker for quite some time, thanks to successes of the QQ, Tiggo, A5 and the old Windcloud/Flagcloud (Fulwin/Cowin) models. Chery is a state-owned company founded in 1997. It began automobile production in 1999 after acquiring toolings and a license to produce the first generation Seat Toledo. Interesting is that Chery was only granted a production license for passenger cars in 2003, which means Chery cars couldn't be legally sold until 2001. Until then Chery was officially only producing automotive components, albeit in a fully assembled form. In 2001 Chery solved the problem by piggybacking on a SAIC Motor license, China's largest state-owned car manufacturer. Chery surely knowns the way around the law... After rising tensions between Chery Automobile and General Motors (GM) and Volkswagen, two of SAIC's joint venture partners, the 20% ownership SAIC once held in Chery was sold. GM was not amused and filed lawsuits after Chery copied their Spark (Matiz) and Epica (Evanda/Magnus) models. Volkswagen also planned a lawsuit against Chery, because they apparently secretly purchased the Seat Toledo blueprints, which is quite interesting considering Seat is a subsidiary of Volkswagen...

The Chery E3 was launched in 2013 and competes with other cheap compact sedans like the BYD F3, Changan Alsvin V7, Great Wall Voleex C30 and Haima M3. At the end of 2014 more sporty looking version was launched as Chery Arrizo 3. The Chery E3 was recently relaunched as Cowin E3. Cowin is Chery's budget brand.