Browse
Log in / Register
Share
Updated Aug. 14, 2025
Chery's newest brand just revealed its first concept car, and it's a rebuke to the safe, SUV-heavy styling of Lepas's launch lineup. The Aura Concept, unveiled during the inaugural Lepas Global Elegant Lifestyle Week in Wuhu, China, is a low-slung three-door shooting brake that sets out the visual identity Chery hopes will carry the new-energy brand upmarket. With stretched proportions, a new front-end treatment and built-in displays for owner customization, the Aura is less a production preview than a declaration: Lepas intends to be the stylish one in Chery's crowded stable.
Lepas is barely off the starting line as a sales operation. It bills itself as a new-energy vehicle brand and is being positioned as the more premium, design-led member of the Chery family — above the mainstream Chery range and sibling Omoda Jaecoo. Its first production models are a trio of SUVs: the small L4, plus the mid-size L6 and L8. The L6 is the first to reach customers, with Australian showrooms due to receive it within weeks. Those SUVs are deliberately conventional: familiar crossover proportions, restrained surfaces, broad appeal. The Aura, by contrast, is a shot across the bow at anyone who assumed Lepas would simply rebadge Chery SUVs with new headlights.
Lepas calls the Aura its second-generation design language, and the change is obvious. The concept keeps the pronounced shoulder line and haunched rear that will define the L-series SUVs, but stretches the package far beyond anything in the production lineup. The wheelbase runs long, the overhangs shrink, and the track widens, pushing the wheels toward the corners and giving the body a crouched, coiled stance. The tail tapers like a fastback, and the flanks flow in long, unbroken curves. There are no fake vents and no theatrical aero add-ons — just clean surface work, consistent with what Chery's global design chief Steve Eum has described as "porcelain-inspired" surfacing. Eum says the L6 EV drew on anything from porcelain and pebbles to waves, ballerinas and high-end fashion; the Aura carries that thinking much further.
Up front, the Aura abandons the SUV family's face entirely. The grille and side air intakes merge into one large black panel spanning the nose, sharpening the car's expression and giving it a more aggressive presence than anything in Lepas's current portfolio. The slim headlights remain a brand signature — they're modeled on leopard eyes — but the surrounding geometry is a clear reset. The result is a front end that reads as lean, predatory, and uncluttered.
Lepas is leaning heavily into software as a styling tool. The front fascia houses what the company calls a "digital canvas," a programmable surface for custom graphics, light sequences and animations. At the rear, an elliptical display allows each owner to craft a personalized tail-light signature. Lepas frames this as co-creation: in its words, buyers can, "in a way, become the designer of their own car." It's a bold pitch that could easily tip into gimmick territory — but it also points to how Lepas expects to stand out without relying on bespoke badges or luxury trims.
Three new exterior colors debut on the Aura, each tied to a landscape and a moment of day. Dawn Pearl takes its cue from a Tahitian sunrise; Bacalar Blue mimics the waters of Mexico's Bacalar Lagoon; Provence Twilight nods to lavender fields at dusk. They're the kind of names automakers love, yet the finishes themselves are designed to show off the concept's layered surfacing — and they hint at a more expressive palette than Chery's mainstream lines will offer.
The leopard runs through everything Lepas does. The name itself is a portmanteau of "leopard" and "passion," and the design team treats the big cat as the narrative spine. Chief designer Ivan Dulanovic was blunt at the brand's Global Elegance Night: "The Aura's stance follows the running leopard; it is lean, forward and efficient." He added: "It is our interpretation of the leopard's power. It is not exaggerated and it is certainly not decorated, it is simply present. And that is how we imagine that strength looks when it doesn't need to prove itself."
The Aura itself is unlikely to reach production as a three-door wagon — a niche body style even in Europe. But a more practical wagon hasn't been ruled out, and the brand has confirmed a small L2 hatchback for 2028. Before that, Lepas will launch the L4 and L8 SUVs, plus a still-unveiled L9. The roadmap is a full range, not a one-hit wonder.
It's also a telling moment for the body style. The wagon and shooting-brake shape is enjoying a revival among Chinese EV makers: Nio sells the ET5 Touring in Europe, Zeekr's 001 is built around a similar low-roof silhouette, and other brands are testing sportier variants. A Lepas wagon wouldn't be pioneering, but it would prove the brand is willing to follow design conviction beyond the SUV comfort zone.
The Aura's arrival is part of a much larger push. By the end of 2026, Chery expects to field eight brands in Australia: Chery, Omoda Jaecoo, Lepas, Exlantix, Freelander, iCar, Jetour and Luxeed. Chery Motor Australia chief operating officer Lucas Harris told CarExpert that the group's styling paths are diverging on purpose. "What you're going to notice over time across the whole group is an even further departure from one another from an aesthetic point of view," he said.
Lepas is building its own dealer network in Australia rather than sharing floorspace with siblings, though it will run on Chery's existing parts, logistics and finance backbone. Brad Ryan, who heads the brand locally, told CarExpert the independence is permanent: "We will be freestanding for as long as we exist, which is forever." He added that the lineup will balloon quickly — "before you even blink we could be up to nine" — and that dealer capacity will be stretched within a couple of years.
For U.S. readers, the Aura is worth watching even though Lepas isn't coming to America. Chery is one of the world's most aggressive exporters of Chinese-built vehicles, shipping more than 1.1 million units in 2024 by its own count, and it has long harbored ambitions for North America. The tariff wall — 100% on Chinese-made EVs — makes a near-term U.S. launch unrealistic. But Chery controls its own design destiny in the meantime.
What the Aura shows is how far the design baseline has moved. A sub-brand that hasn't sold its first car is already developing a shooting brake with a coherent design story, customizable digital lighting and a confident premium position — the kind of discipline Hyundai used to turn Genesis into a credible luxury player. If trade policy ever shifts, the first wave of Chinese EVs exported to the U.S. could look radically different from the budget-minded models many Americans still expect. The Aura is a preview of that possibility.
Until then, it's a concept car with a message: Chery's newest brand wants to be judged on style, not just price.
