Tempest Car Hire has bought an initial 200 Chery QQ3 hatchbacks to fulfil its core focus of continuing to provide very good value for money to its customers. These cars can be rented from as little as R145 per day, which made it the most affordable rental cars in the industry at the time of the introduction of the Cherys into the Tempest fleet.
“The rental industry is very quick to react and we expect our competitors to try and match our offer, but we are pleased that we have been able to lead the way in lowering rental costs and provide best in the market prices once again,” explained Martin Lydall, the Chief Commercial Officer.
This is the first time that Tempest has bought Cherys. The 200 cars have been introduced into the fleet and are located nationally at all the main airports to meet the peak summer demand.
The Chery QQ3s which have joined the Tempest fleet are the entry level model with the 800cc engine which adds to the customer savings with low fuel consumption as an added benefit.
Lydall said that the Chery QQ3 was fully evaluated by the Tempest technical team before the purchase decision was made and it complied fully with the company’s set of stringent pre-purchase criteria.
“The major driving factors in choosing the QQ3 were that the cars themselves are well-priced, have good specifications in terms of comfort, air-conditioning, CD player, and the replacement parts are reasonable to. This allows Tempest to pass on savings to the customers,” added Lydall. “Early customer feedback is positive.”
The next phase in the introduction of the Chery QQ3s to the Tempest rental fleet will be a lucky draw competition in which one a renter of a Chery QQ3 will win one of these cars. This competition will run over three months, from September to November.
Tempest Car Hire was established in 1986 as an independent car rental organisation to take on the major players at the time. It performed well in a tough market and in 1991 was acquired by the Imperial Group which permitted an expansion of infrastructure and the opportunity of purchasing from a far wider range of vehicles.
The size of the Tempest fleet varies seasonally but peaks at over 4 000 vehicles, all of which are offered at competitive rates in line with the company objective of providing value-for-money offerings backed by friendly and efficient service.
Mike Scarth, the brand Manager for Chery SA, said the sale of Chery QQ3s into the Tempest Car Hire fleet was important as it showed the acceptability of these cars in this important market where quality and reliability are major factors.
The sub-compact QQ3 was launched in SA, together with the Chery brand in 2008 and has consistently been the most popular model in the Chery range. A number of improvements have been made to the Chery QQ3 over the years which have further improved its value-for-money offering.
The model chosen by Tempest is powered by a very economical 0.8-litre three-cylinder engine which produces 38kW of power and 70N.m of torque. It drives the front wheels through a five-speed manual gearbox. Claimed fuel consumption in a combined cycle is 5.7l/100km with an emission rating of 133gm/km.
Among the projects undertaken by Chery SA since its arrival in South Africa has been the setting of SA speed and endurance records at the Gerotek test track west of Pretoria by entry-level Chery QQ3 cars, with 800cc and 1 100cc engines. The five cars used for the attempt and driven by 20 professional drivers and journalists covered a total of 33 351 trouble free kilometres.