11:05 am, October 27, 2025
Changan is aiming to have 60 UK showrooms up and running by the end of this year as it becomes the latest Chinese brand to have a crack at the UK market.
That is according to the firm’s British boss, Nic Thomas, who has been outlining the brand’s ambitious plans for growth across Europe.
Appearing on the latest episode of the Car Dealer Podcast, Thomas explained what makes Changan different from its Asian rivals and pledged to put dealers at the heart of UK operations.
He said that the outfit currently has 40 showrooms signed up, of which half are already open. The firm also wants to have an additional 20 showrooms open to customers by the end of December, taking its total number to 60.
Long-term, the group is aiming to have 100 retail points across the UK, operated by around 25 dealer partners.
Changan has already signed franchise agreements with the likes of Lookers, Stoneacre and Parks, and talks remain ongoing with a more large chains.
The firm benefits from its own design centre in Italy and Thomas told podcast hosts James Baggott and Jon Reay that the cars’ unique styling is what makes them stand out in a crowded market.
Its first car to launch over here – the SO7 – is a mid-sized crossover to rival the likes of the VW ID.4 and Tesla Model Y. That will be followed by a larger SUV, built to take on the Ford Kuga and Nissan Qashqai.
Outlining the brand’s UK dealer plans, Thomas said: ‘Dealerwise, we are looking for to have about 60 showrooms open by the end of this year around the UK.
‘We’ve got 40 signed up already, 20 open as of now with another 20 planned to open before the end of this year and lots more work to do to get the other 20 on board.
‘For the last two years, I’ve been building a really experienced team. I started in Europe, but now in the UK, have been fortunate to bring on board a really great UK team.
‘We’ve got about 30 local hired people now, and similar to myself, all with lots of really good industry experience.
‘We are trying to anticipate and avoid some of the mistakes that we’ve perhaps spent part of our career trying to fix.’
He added: ‘If you’ve worked in dealer network over the last 25 years, you’ve probably been going through an ideal network plan or something similar to that, where you’re trying to consolidate to a smaller number of partners, close some of the smaller or the profitable outlets and not have two or three different dealer owners fighting against each other in the same territory.
‘We’re setting up market areas from the start. Across those 60 outlets, we’ll have 25 partners maximum. As we grow in the future, we only want to grow to about 100 sites nationally, but still with those 25 partners.
‘Because we’ve taken that approach and because we’ve got a very solid company behind us and a fantastic product lineup, we’ve been able to really attract some very high quality partners to work with us.
‘We’ve already, we’ve already got sites open with, with Lookers, with Stoneacre, with Parks, with DM Keith, with Sandicliffe – very reputable partners.
‘We’ve also signed with a number of other very, very reputable, very large groups and there are plenty of others who we’re not quite signed with and can’t quite announce.
‘I was in the offices of a very large group yesterday going through a detailed plan for a large market area with them and so those other 20 sites that we need to sign are well underway.
‘It is really paying dividends having this solid approach.’
The Car Dealer Podcast, sponsored by Auto Trader, sees an industry guest join our hosts to discuss the motor trade’s biggest headlines of every week.
A full list of the stories discussed can be found here.
You can listen to all episodes of the Car Dealer Podcast on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
