Chery introduces iCAR GT sports car and iCAR 03 SUV

It will take realizing the iCAR name is not associated with the Apple brand. Instead, the iCAR belongs to Chery, a Chinese state-owned car manufacturer with an almost fruity name - we’ll never know if this was intentional. Until recently, Chery's name was associated with cute, city vehicles and low prices, but the iCAR brand is about to change that image.

iCAR is aimed at young buyers with budge spanning from $22,000 to $60,000 according to the company. The company’s logo - a giant “i” - has apparently been designed by the same guy who gave us the Panda mascot for the 2022 Olympics. Clearly, he spent much less time on the iCAR logo.

iCAR GT is quite something - the longer we look at it, the more we like it. A lot is going on in the design of this coupe - the front has almost a French “old-school” sports car vibe to it and there’s little of Jensen Interceptor in that slanted front as well. The coupe comes with obligatory scissor doors, but they actually swing out to the sides a little - more like a butterfly effect. Try parking that in a garage - can’t wait for the first YouTube videos.

The front and rear lights are taking advantage of the latest LED technology. We have the “i” light signature both in the front and the rear plus the illuminated logo in the middle. The most interesting though are the illuminated wheels - you can bet your bottom dollar those won’t make it to production.

The interior is where we are reminded this is a prototype, from the outside it may look as if it is production-ready, but a look inside jolts us back to reality. iCAR takes the yoke steering idea from Tesla to the next level and fits a TIE Fighter instead. The giant center screen occupies most of the dashboard while the futuristic seats look like they came from the Star Trek movie set.

And while we expected the GT, the unveiling of the iCAR 03 took us by surprise. Although it does look like a hard-core off-roader the car is actually only 4.2 meters long according to the company. That’s about as big as Smart #1 and interestingly, both have a similar wheelbase of 2.7 meters.

The tough-looking 4x4 had its windows blacked out and the doors locked meaning its interior either wasn’t ready or it would be unveiled at a later stage.The “i” light signature is present both in the front and at the rear and the car looks very much like the mini-Defender, which is not a bad thing at all.

Chery had a very busy event, after the two new cars were unveiled, the company presented its future product lineup. The iCAR will eventually have 6 electric vehicles on the market spanning from MPVs to SUVs and sports cars.

An even bigger surprise was the unveiling of iCAR’s new virtual assistant called i-VA. This new addition to the world of clever technology is fully connected to the internet and apparently can make ChatGPT run for its money. Maybe i-VA is the one we should be afraid of?

And finally, the company confirmed it is working closely with CATL on a new battery brand called ENER-Q. The executives confirmed as well that Chery will be the first manufacturer to use CATL's sodium-ion batteries in its vehicles. The sodium batteries seem to be taking big steps and in the last 12 months went from an idea to a commercially viable product.

Via