Omoda C9 SUV Teased – Arriving Together with Jaecoo Brand?

As one of China’s largest vehicle exporters, Chery surely has a lot of sub-brands under its arms, with the recent one entering our market being its luxury off-road-focussed brand, Jaecoo. While the brand is marketed together with Omoda in most international markets, the Jaecoo brand arrives as a sole entity here in our market, with Omoda failing under Chery Auto Malaysia’s umbrella instead.

Chery-owned Omoda sub-brand has unveiled a teaser image depicting its new luxury SUV model, the Omoda C9.

However, things might change once and for all, as both Jaecoo and Omoda recently posted a teaser image depicting a brand new SUV model coming into our market. Interestingly, said image was shared concurrently by both Jaecoo Malaysia and Omoda Malaysia’s official Instagram pages, with the latter account being recently set up.

The Omoda C9 is essentially a rebadged version of Chery's luxury midsize SUV model, the Exeed RX.

At one glance, we can see that the model depicted here is the Omoda C9 SUV, which is also known as the Exeed RX in selected markets. Previewed initially at the Chery International User Summit (CIUS) last year, the Omoda C9 is positioned as the brand’s luxury midsize SUV and features a five-seat configuration.

Dimension-wise, the C9 measures 4,775 MM long, 1,920 MM wide, 1,671 MM tall, and has a wheelbase of 2,800 MM. This puts it comfortably in the realm of other midsize SUVs in our market, such as the Proton X90, Chery Tiggo 8 Pro, and many more.

On the mechanical side, this sporty midsize SUV shares many of its parts with other large SUV models under the Chery family. This includes the 2.0-liter 4-cyl turbocharged petrol mill rated at 261 HP and 400 NM and the 7-speed DCT automatic gearbox. This setup allows the C9 to accelerate from 0-100 KM/H in 8.6 seconds, while its fuel consumption rate is capped at 7.6 litres per 100 KM.

While most of Chery-owned SUV models underpin its proprietary T1X platform, the C9 instead rides on a different platform named the M3X, which was co-developed by the Wuhu-based marque and renowned automotive manufacturer Magna International.

Besides the full-petrol version, the C9 also comes in a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version, which swaps the 2.0-litre mill for a smaller 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbocharged unit that is augmented with Chery’s proprietary C-DM PHEV setup. Comprising a 3-speed dedicated hybrid transmission (DHT) and two e-motors, this PHEV setup is capable of delivering a total system output of up to 610 HP and 920 NM.

Juicing said e-motors are either a 19.43-kWh or a larger 34.46-kWh LFP-type battery packs sourced from CATL, with the latter granting the C9 PHEV an all-EV range of up to 195 KM, Chery claims.

Could the arrival of the Omoda C9 SUV mark the official merger of the Omoda and Jaecoo brands in Malaysia?

The arrival of the Omoda C9 was previously earmarked by the Wuhu-based automaker since the initial preview of its Exeed-badged twin last year, with Chery Malaysia previously planning to bring along the Exeed luxury sub-brand into the market. Given that the automaker now opts to bring it under the Omoda brand, perhaps this will be the turning point for Chery Malaysia to merge both Omoda and Jaecoo into a single entity, just like the rest of the international markets.

With that being said, the fate of Chery-branded Omoda models like the Omoda 5 and E5 EV remains to be seen, but there’s a chance that these two models will also be absorbed under Omoda’s arm in the future.