Chery takes over former Nissan plant in South Africa, eyes auto hub

Chery formally took over Nissan’s Rosslyn car plant in Pretoria on Friday, July 3, and said it will spend millions of dollars upgrading the site before starting production in South Africa in mid-2027. The handover gives the Chinese automaker a manufacturing base in Africa’s most industrialized auto market and a foothold for a wider regional push.

The company said it will keep all 692 existing employees at the plant and expects the project to create nearly 3,000 direct and indirect jobs across manufacturing, supply chains and related services. Charlie Zhang, Chery’s vice president, said the long-term plan is to turn Rosslyn into a full auto center with manufacturing, exports, research and development, supply-chain operations and training. Chery also wants South Africa to serve as its African hub for regional operations.

That ambition lands in a plant with deep history. Nissan’s Rosslyn site opened in 1966 and has operated for about 60 years, making the transfer a symbolic shift in South Africa’s car industry from a long era of Japanese ownership to Chinese control. Nissan said in January that the site would continue contributing to South Africa’s automotive sector after the sale, while the company keeps selling vehicles and services locally and prepares new launches in fiscal 2026, including the Nissan Tekton and Nissan Patrol.

The transaction has also moved through South Africa’s competition process. The South African Competition Commission recommended approval in June, subject to conditions, as the government and local industry leaders pushed to keep production anchored in the country. The deal fits into South Africa’s Automotive Master Plan Vision 2035, which aims to build a globally competitive and transformed vehicle industry and expand exports across the region.

For South Africa, the stakes are bigger than one factory in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria. Recent industry materials say the automotive sector supports more than 110,000 direct manufacturing jobs and over 300,000 jobs when retail is included. Chery’s move adds fresh investment to that base, but it also shows how quickly global carmakers are redrawing their manufacturing maps as they search for lower costs, new markets and more resilient supply chains.

For China’s automakers, the Rosslyn takeover is another sign of expanding industrial reach abroad. Chery operates in more than 130 countries and regions, and the South African plant is now central to its plan to build, export and coordinate operations across Africa. The company’s first major factory in the region is designed to be more than an assembly line: it is a platform for sales growth, local sourcing and a deeper competitive challenge to legacy automakers across the continent.