Chery on the cake

Quality metrics: Chery’s AI-themed gala in Wuhu, Anhui province, in January. The Chery design team has grown from a local group into a global creative collective. — Photo: China Daily

WHEN leading Chinese automaker Chery Automobile recently swept five of the 2025 J.D. Power awards, the auto industry’s most closely watched quality benchmarks, the headline was easy to write: a domestic brand had claimed a rare five-crown sweep across new car quality, product appeal, sales satisfaction, after-sales service and long-term reliability.

What was harder – and more consequential – was what lay beneath the hard-won achievement.