New Chinese brand Lepas – brought to you by another new Chinese brand, Chery – has officially announced that its first car to launch in the UK will be the L8. 

The L8 is a rebadged version of the Chery Tiggo 8, and will be a five-seater SUV powered by motors unknown. We’re going to have to wait another few weeks to find out more information about the car. 

The Tiggo 8 is currently on sale in China and set to arrive in the UK as a plug-in hybrid model, so it’s likely that it’ll come with that same setup. We've driven the Tiggo 7 already and were impressed by its quality levels.

Lepas says that the car is built on Chery’s all-new ‘New Energy Vehicle’ modular platform, which will be designed to underpin a variety of cars but also presumably to fit an electric powertrain, so we could see something along those lines.

The 18kWh battery and 56 miles of range that come with the £28k Chery are not genre redefining but the car will at least be good value. 

The pictures we have of the L8 so far show a sleek, well appointed interior that hits all of the required notes – minimalist design, a few buttons, wireless phone charging, massive touchscreen and a nice panoramic windscreen. 

It’s interesting to see the arrival of another new brand on the market, though. As we learned the other week when the brand was launched with a surprise, the Lepas name is a portmanteau (French for crazy mix) of the words ‘leopard’, ‘leap’ and ‘passion’. 

So it’ll come as no surprise then to see that the L8 itself features lines along its side that have been inspired by the ‘agile contours’ of a running leopard and that the LED headlights have been designed to echo the ‘focused intensity’ of a leopard’s eye. 

If a leopard could indeed turn into a car, would it turn into a five-seater Chinese family SUV? A debate for another day, perhaps. 

The launch of the car onto the British market will take place in the late summer – keep checking back at Electrifying.com for pricing and full details as they’re announced. 

Are you getting leopard vibes from the new Lepas L8? Don't get too close, it may bite