On June 16, 2026 local time in Detroit, USA, the world’s most authoritative automotive quality management standards body - the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) announced that Chery Auto has become the third automotive group member from Asia and has been granted voting rights on the board.

Illustration: IATF announcement welcoming Chery as a new member of the IATF Board

    At the IATF meeting, Howard Xu, Vice President of Chery Auto, delivered a systematic review of Chery’s 29‑year journey in quality development, highlighting Chinese automakers’ breakthroughs in quality innovation in the era of electrification and intelligent mobility. Building on a full-process closed-loop quality management system, Chery has brought the battery, motor and electric control, intelligent cockpit, and autonomous driving software and hardware under unified quality governance, while in parallel enhancing global quality control standards for complete vehicles and components. In addition, drawing on China’s experience in the development of new energy vehicles, Chery has proposed adaptation and optimization suggestions for existing IATF standards, helping international quality standards better accommodate and enable new technologies and emerging vehicle architectures.

    Chery’s case study and best-practice sharing received unanimous recognition from experts on site. Ultimately, Chery received unanimous approval in the vote and officially became a member of the IATF Board. This means that Chery will be directly involved in the formulation, revision and promotion of the world’s highest-level automotive quality framework, evolving from merely aligning with international standards to co-developing them.

Illustration: IATF board members congratulating Chery Auto on officially becoming a new IATF member

A Seat at the Table: Co-developing "Truly Global" Automotive Quality Standards

    Established in 1996, the IATF is responsible for IATF 16949, the globally adopted quality management standard for the automotive supply chain. The founding members of IATF include the automotive industry associations of the United States, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom, as well as major global automakers such as BMW, General Motors, Volkswagen, Ford and Mercedes‑Benz.

    Chery is among the first Chinese independent brands to align with the IATF certification system. In 2002, Chery became the first automaker in China to be certified to IATF 16949. By the end of 2025, all of Chery’s global production and operation entities have been certified to ISO 9001, IATF 16949 and a series of other international quality standards.

    Moving from benchmarking and following to co‑developing and voting, Chery, as an IATF member, will work with other members on the iterative updating of IATF standards, interpretation of requirements and their promotion worldwide. The quality management expertise Chinese automakers have built up through electrification and intelligent transformation now has a direct pathway into the top-level design of international rules, further strengthening China’s voice in global automotive quality governance.

Relentless pursuit of quality: the Chinese brand with the most global five-star safety ratings

    Behind more than two decades of uncompromising commitment to the world’s most stringent quality benchmarks, Chery has already embedded the belief that “quality outweighs deliveries” into its corporate DNA. Focusing on R&D, purchase, manufacturing and after-sales, Chery has built a closed-loop quality management system: the V-shaped forward development process defines product standards at the source; the globally unified production system (CPS) ensures consistent output standards across all global plants; the Global Product Quality Assurance System (CGPQA) accelerates the rollout of initiatives to reinforce quality across the value chain worldwide, enabling integrated, end-to-end, cross-regional quality governance and significantly boosting product reliability.

    Third-party assessment systems provide another lens through which to evaluate quality performance. After securing the only independent “five-time champion” title in J.D. Power’s 2025 quality study, Chery went on to rank No. 1 among Chinese brands in the J.D. Power Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study for the third year in a row in June 2026. As of now, 67 Chery models have earned global five‑star safety ratings, ranking Chery No. 1 among Chinese automotive brands.

Chery tops J.D. Power APEAL among Chinese brands for a third consecutive year

Faster global expansion: another “passport” to highly regulated markets

    For Chinese automakers that are rapidly expanding globally, joining the IATF will also serve as a "key" and “passport” for entering tightly regulated European and U.S. markets, continually converting robust, system-based quality into competitive strength in international deliveries.

    As of the end of May 2026, Chery had served a cumulative 19.62 million users worldwide, including more than 6.59 million international users. In Europe, a market known for stringent entry requirements, Chery delivered 138,843 vehicles from January to May, representing an increase of 216.69% compared with the same period last year. In the UK, Chery ranked second among all brands in terms of deliveries for three consecutive months, underscoring the strong fit and value of its standardized quality management system in high-end international markets.

Chery Vehicles Bound for Global Delivery

    From first obtaining IATF system certification in 2002 to becoming one of the co-developers of IATF standards in 2026, more than twenty years of accumulated systems and standards have enabled Chery to achieve critical breakthroughs in quality development step by step, bearing witness to how Chinese automakers are evolving from “test-takers” to co-designers in global automotive quality governance.