Chery signs five-year Le Mans deal, EXEED to run “Road to Le Mans” plan toward a factory 24-hour entry

KUALA LUMPUR: Chery Group has inked a strategic five-year partnership with the organiser of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in what it says is the first full-scale collaboration between a Chinese automotive group and one of motorsport’s biggest institutions.

According to Chery Motor's Australian site, the agreement was signed on 13 December in Kuala Lumpur between Chery’s premium brand EXEED and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), the body behind Le Mans and the wider endurance racing ecosystem.

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Chery is framing the tie-up as the starting gun for its “Road to Le Mans” motorsport program, a multi-year push aimed at getting the brand from building local endurance racing capability to competing on the world stage.

Le Mans, for anyone who needs the refresher, is the 24-hour endurance race that sits in the sport’s top tier, alongside the global pull of Formula 1 and the World Rally Championship. It is also famously brutal on machines, teams and drivers, rewarding the kind of consistency and reliability that doesn’t always show up in shorter sprint formats.

Three steps to Le Mans, domestic series first, then Asia, then a factory team

Under the five-year plan outlined by Chery, EXEED’s route is split into three stages.

First, it will establish a domestic endurance racing series to build technical capability and develop talent. Second, it will move into the Asian Le Mans Series. Third, the stated end goal is an EXEED factory team that contests the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Chery aiming to become the first Chinese manufacturer team to do so.

It is a neat, logical ladder on paper, because endurance racing is not something you casually jump into at the sharp end. You need engineers who can live in data, mechanics who can rebuild fast without drama, and systems that can survive heat, vibration and fatigue for a full day without turning into a highlight reel of failures.

Wuhu gets a Le Mans-certified circuit as part of the collaboration

The partnership also goes beyond just showing up at races. Chery says it will work with the ACO to develop a Le Mans-certified circuit in Wuhu, the company’s headquarters city in China.

If that plan moves ahead as described, it would give Chery a more permanent base to develop cars, test endurance-focused solutions, and build a local motorsport audience around the Le Mans brand of racing. It also hints at a longer-term play, motorsport as an ecosystem, not a one-off headline.

Chery says this is about technology, not just branding

The key line from Chery is that this isn’t meant to be a sticker-and-photo-op exercise. The company says the partnership is focused on technology development, with data and learnings from endurance racing intended to feed back into future production vehicles, specifically around powertrain efficiency, durability and reliability.

That matters because endurance racing, when it’s done properly, is a stress test for the boring but important stuff, thermal management, component life, systems integration, and how consistently a powertrain can perform when it has been working hard for hours on end.

The bigger picture, from exporter to tech player

Chery is also positioning the Le Mans effort as part of a broader ambition, moving from being known mainly as a vehicle exporter to being seen as a global automotive technology player, using motorsport as a proving ground for next-generation innovation.

Whether EXEED’s plan ends up on the Le Mans grid with a full factory operation is the long-term headline, but the near-term story is simpler, Chery is committing to a structured endurance racing program tied to the ACO, and it wants the benefits to show up in its engineering, not just its marketing.

For now, the roadmap is clear. Build the base at home, step into the Asian Le Mans Series, then take a shot at the big one, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

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