Founded in 1997, Chery Automobile quickly has grown to become one of China's biggest carmakers. The company currently builds seven models of passenger cars, including the QQ compact, the A5 sedan, and V5 crossover. Chery sold approximately 350,000 vehicles in 2008; by 2010 it hopes to produce a million cars per year, and export about 40% of them. Penetrating the North American and European markets is an important goal for Chery. It has set up distributors in Austria as well as in Eastern Europe in preparation for entering those markets.