Chery as a Pillar: The Franchise Was Renewed, but Licensing Is Still Open
The main article already showed that Chery carries too much of Carasso's commercial story to remain a side note. This follow-up explains why a 5-year franchise renewal did not close the issue: the direct-import license was still unresolved while Chery already dominates deliveries, import cost, and part of the plug-in transition.
The main article argued that Carasso's question is no longer only how many vehicles it can deliver, but how much capital, complexity, and regulation it is accumulating along the way. This follow-up isolates the link that became both the main growth engine and a major sensitivity point in 2025: Chery.
The issue is not that franchise renewal failed to happen. It happened, and on a relatively long horizon. The issue is that the license that allows Carasso to import directly in practice remained far shorter and still unresolved at the report date. When one brand accounts for 27,351 deliveries in the company's 2025 presentation, 48% of vehicle import cost, and one of its models contributes 14% of consolidated revenue, the gap between a long commercial agreement and a short regulatory permit stops being a footnote. It becomes a core question.
Four points frame the thesis:
- Chery is no longer just Carasso's leading brand. It is its pillar. In the 2025 presentation, Chery accounts for 27,351 deliveries out of 47,431, or about 57.7% of the company's displayed delivery volume.
- The dependence is visible on the supplier side as well, not only on the customer side. Chery reached 48% of the group's vehicle import cost in 2025, versus 37% in 2024.
- The franchise with the manufacturer was renewed for 5 years, but the direct-import license remained open. At the report date, the Chery license had only been extended through April 30, 2026, while the Competition Authority had merely recommended a one-year extension.
- That gap matters more now because Carasso's newer electrified story also runs through Chery. The market shifted in 2025 from pure EVs toward hybrids and plug-ins, and the presentation builds Carasso's adaptation to that change around Chery models.
Chery Already Holds The Center Of Gravity
The easy way to underread the risk is to say that Carasso has a broad portfolio of brands and therefore no real concentration issue. That is incomplete. The portfolio may be broad, but the weight shifted clearly toward Chery in 2025.
This chart is unusually sharp. Chery alone is about 4.2 times the size of the next brand in the presentation, Nissan, and larger than Nissan and XPENG together. This is no longer a successful brand inside a portfolio. It is the brand carrying most of the story.
The detailed annual-sales table tells the same story. Chery vehicle sales rose to 24,460 in 2025 from 13,374 in 2024, a jump of about 82.9%. At the same time, Chery's share of the group's vehicle import cost rose to 48% in 2025, after 37% in 2024 and 43% in 2023. In other words, dependence sits not only in deliveries, but also in procurement and supply.
What sharpens the point even further is the concentration inside the brand. The Chery Tiggo 8 alone sold 7,411 units in 2025 and contributed NIS 1.204 billion, about 14.4% of the group's consolidated revenue. So it is not only that Carasso depends heavily on Chery. Within Chery, there are already models that carry the weight of a platform inside the platform.
That is exactly why franchise renewal matters, but is still not enough. Once commercial dependence becomes this deep, the question is no longer only whether the manufacturer wants to keep working with Carasso. The question is whether the local licensing framework gives the same brand a similar operating horizon.
The Franchise Is Long, The License Is Still Short
This is the gap that justifies the continuation analysis. On one side, the manufacturer relationship was strengthened. On the other side, the regulatory approval for direct import remained much shorter and far less settled.
| Date | What happened | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| June 7, 2022 | Carasso signed the Chery distribution agreement for 3 years, with renewal subject to conditions | This is the original commercial anchor of the brand in Israel |
| July 5, 2022 | The Ministry of Transport approved a direct-import license for Chery vehicles | Without this, there is no direct-import activity in practice |
| April 8, 2025 | Carasso and Chery agreed to renew the franchise for 5 years | The manufacturer-side horizon became clearly longer |
| February 26, 2026 | The Competition Authority recommended a 1-year extension of the direct-import license for Chery in category M1 | This is positive directionally, but not a final decision and still not a 5-year horizon |
| April 30, 2026 | This was the effective validity date of the extended license at the report date | This was the known practical end-date on the table |
The material point is not only that the periods are different. It is that the company itself says it cannot assess what the Ministry of Transport's decision will be or what its implications may be. That is a relatively strong statement. Not because it necessarily signals a negative outcome, but because it makes clear that even after the commercial franchise renewal, the regulatory permit layer was still not closed.
The February 26, 2026 immediate report did not fully solve that either. It improved the tone because the Competition Authority recommended extension. But the recommendation itself is only for one year, and the ministry still had not updated the company on the actual duration at the report date. So the news was positive in direction, not in certainty.
That difference is critical. A 5-year franchise renewal says the manufacturer wants Carasso to keep carrying the brand. A license that is effectively known only on a short horizon means Carasso's main commercial engine is still operating with a much shorter regulatory leash. Both things can be true at once, and that is exactly the situation here.
Why It Matters Right Now
If Chery were just another mid-sized brand inside a broad lineup, this gap could probably be treated as background noise. But in 2025 Chery became the main vehicle through which Carasso gained share, and also the main vehicle through which it responded to changing market taste.
Israel's EV share fell to 19.8% of the market in 2025 from 24.7% in 2024. At the same time, the company highlights stronger demand for hybrids and plug-ins. Inside that shift, the presentation builds a meaningful part of Carasso's answer around Chery's PHEV technology.
This is not just a marketing slide. It matters because it shows where Carasso managed to position itself while demand was moving. Carasso is shown with 13,463 plug-in deliveries in 2025, slightly above Colmobil's 13,365. And the footnote on the same slide says Chery Tiggo plug-in deliveries only began in April 2025. In other words, Carasso's newer electrified answer already ran to a meaningful extent through Chery, not through one of its older brands.
That links directly into 2026. The company says growth in the vehicle segment over the coming year is expected to come in part from the continued establishment of Chery and XPENG. So even going forward, Chery is not framed as a brand that has already matured enough to reduce dependence. It remains at the center of the expansion plan.
That is where the analytical issue becomes clear. The more commercially important Chery becomes, the more sensitive the gap between franchise renewal and licensing becomes. If the Ministry of Transport ends up operating on a short rolling horizon of one year at a time, even after the Competition Authority's recommendation, Carasso will still be running its main brand under a relatively narrow regulatory window. If the ministry grants a clearer and wider extension, one major overhang comes off the story.
Conclusion
The Chery franchise renewal is good news, but it is not closure. It answers whether the manufacturer wants Carasso. It still does not answer for how long the regulator is willing to give Carasso's main brand a clear direct-import horizon.
That is the key takeaway from this follow-up: Chery is already too large inside Carasso for the market to treat this gap as a technical legal detail. It carries most of the deliveries, nearly half of vehicle import cost, part of the plug-in transition, and part of the 2026 expansion map. As long as the direct-import license remains open or materially shorter than the renewed franchise, the risk center remains alive.
Bottom line: Carasso strengthened its relationship with Chery, but it still had not locked in the licensing framework around the brand. And once Chery becomes the pillar of growth, that is not a small legal detail. It is a thesis variable.
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