And know here too that Omoda, Jaecoo and Exeed are all to be sub-brands under the wider Chery umbrella.
When Chery first made its (re)appearance locally, the Chinese automaker landed with two models in the form of its Omoda 5 and Tiggo 8 Pro. Soon however, some Malaysians will inevitably be confused when they walk into a Jaecoo showroom and see that it too has an Omoda on sale, in the form of the upcoming C9.
To further add to the confusion too, those who try to look this coupe-SUV up online may stumble upon the fact that it is in fact sold under the name Exeed RX. And no, this is not to be confused with the model of the same name sold by Lexus.
So, how did it get all so confusing? Well, it really all has to do with Chery doing what most Chinese automakers love to do these days, and have way too many sub-brands under its corporate umbrella!
But just to avoid going on a rant about how this practice of splitting off nearly every model into its own sub-brand is, to put it mildly, rather confusing to the customer, let’s just instead focus here on trying to simply explain how the Exeed RX is to be known as the Jaecoo Omoda C9 over here. Simply because this in itself is quite the story already, and quite the confusing one at that too…
How The Exeed RX Became The Omoda C9
Now in explaining how the Exeed RX was rebadge to become an Omoda C9, the most basic explanation for this is that Omoda (along with Jaecoo) is to be Chery’s international-facing brands. Hence if going only by this nugget of information here, it does make some sense for the Exeed to be rebranded as an Omoda for sale outside of its home market.
Going from the fact that internationally too, what we know in Malaysia as the Omoda 5 is known as the Omoda C5, it does also somewhat make sense that this larger offering is to be dubbed the C9. (Though one could probably make the case they would want to save the C9 model moniker for a car that is actually much larger than what the Exeed RX is, as despite being a BMW X5-sized car, it is still a 5-seat SUV after all).
Where what was said above starts to break down somewhat is that, contrary to Chery’s own intentions of having only the Omoda and Jaecoo be its international brands, the Exeed marque is also a brand that is available outside of China. This slight bit of strangeness could nevertheless be explained from the fact that exports of the Exeed brand started in early 2022 (with Russia being the first international market), before Chery decided to officially announce its Jaecoo and Omoda international spin-offs the following year.
Just adding a bit more tangential confusion here on Exeed though, it is worth highlighting that Chery also has a similarly-named brand under its corporate umbrella called Luxeed. This marque is a collaborative effort between the Chinese automaker and Huawei under the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA), with it to have since launched the S7 all-electric sedan and its slightly higher-riding R7 coupe-SUV sibling.
How The Omoda C9 Came To Be Sold By Jaecoo In Malaysia
In touching upon why there is soon to be an Omoda in both the Malaysian Chery and Jaecoo dealership meanwhile, this topic of discussion once again goes back to the (in hindsight) interesting brand (re)launch strategy it has since employed over here.
Unlike in other international markets where the sleeker Omoda brand was to be the other side of the same coin with the more rugged Jaecoo marque (to the point that both were supposed to go halves on dealership spaces), Chery has instead decided to lump its Tiggo and Omoda sub-brands under the Chery nameplate over here when it first returned, while spinning off Jaecoo to be its own independent entity later on.
Now the Tiggo sub-brand is another one like Exeed that isn’t technically part of Chery’s official export strategy, but it has since made its way outside of China to other (developing) markets the Chinese automaker wishes to establish a presence. Though the more important point that is worth taking away here is that where Chery sells the Tiggo sub-brand internationally, it is to be the only sub-brand that is sold directly under the Chery nameplate.
So with this in mind then, it can thus be hypothesised that Chery is currently doing some on-the-fly brand realignment locally by pushing the Omoda line under Jaecoo over here, while it only focuses on the Tiggo line. This does see Malaysia be the only country to sell the Omoda as a Jaecoo, but we were already a bit special by having our Omoda 5s feature a Chery badge (instead of a brash but badge-less front grille with Omoda on the top).
And while it likely wasn’t that big a deal for Chery to have stuck the Omoda C9 next to what is basically a similarly-priced Tiggo 8 Pro in the same dealership over here, this impetus to push this sub-RM 200,000 SUV under the Jaecoo nameplate could have likely been expedited somewhat by the fact that the ‘Chery Omoda’ name has developed a rather bad rep for itself locally. Selling it as a Jaecoo should thus give it sufficient dissociative distance away from the ill-fated Omoda 5, at least in the mind of the lay-person.
Just for that lay-person who might be interested in actually knowing more about this Luxeed RX/Jaecoo Omoda C9 too, conveniently linked here is the all you need to really know about this sleek SUV that is set to launch locally next month.
