Chris Clayton (pictured above), Fleet Director for Chery brand Lepas, talks to Russell Hayes about the new Lepas brand launch at Fleet Procure Live
Why did you choose fleet for the first preview of a Lepas model?
“We always build on what we didn’t do before. Ray Wang, who is the Lepas MD and senior leader within the Chery group, has been a key figure since I joined in 2023 and he realised fleet will be really important. ‘We need to start earlier,’ he said.
“Brokers are especially important for those smaller fleet sizes, the SME businesses, because generally they’re not going to a big funder for them, they’re trusting a broker to do that procurement for them. We’ve got strong relationships with nearly every broker in the UK in one way or another, so we’ll utilise that hopefully to try and get into those SMEs and corporates. But salsac will be funder-led.”
Why is the first model not a pure EV?
“All of the new entrants that come in with sole EV very quickly backtrack, and what I hear from them is, ‘don’t worry, we’ve got plug-in hybrid coming next year. I joined this group in 2023, and it’s saying, ‘We’ve got petrol, we’ve got hybrid, we’ve got plug-in, whatever stage you are on that electrification journey, we’ll support you on it.’
“Obviously with Chery we don’t have EV, with Lepas we will have, so we can really get into the salary sacrifice specialists.”
What about inter-brand competition?
“You can’t avoid it. We’re trying to price these as carefully as possible, but within the Group, you’ve got an Omoda 7 and a Jaecoo 7 for example. We’ve got the Lepas L8, which again will compete. We’re trying to offer these to a different customer type.
“We’re trying to focus different models into different sectors: for example, Chery in salary sacrifice or Omoda in public sector, but because we’re going into every sector, it’s inevitable there’s going to be that crossover.”
How big is the fleet team?
“The fleet team is constantly evolving. At the moment, Omoda and Jaecoo are the key brands that we’ve started with, then bringing in the other brands. We’ve got 15 in our fleet team which ranges across operations, corporate, leasing and broker and marketing. But then we’re also supported by a team of four virtual account managers, and business development managers.”
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Russell Hayes’ early career was 14 years of motoring journalism in print (for What Car?), television (for Top Gear), as well as online. Since 2007 he has authored 12 motoring history books on subjects including TVR, the Earls Court Motor Show, the Volkswagen Golf and Aston Martin – see Russell Hayes on Amazon. However, he’s not forgotten how to be a motoring journalist and now writes for UK consumer motoring sites – not to mention Broker News. When he’s not writing, Russell can be found in the cinema or planning his next travel adventure.
