ROAD TEST 5738

Chery’s SUV brand hits the UK with a family PHEV that’s big on value

PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON

The car under scrutiny in this road test extends the number of Chinese-built and Chinese-branded, budget-priced, plug-in hybrid, family-sized SUVs competing for attention in the UK to three.

That may not sound like the most extensive selection. In fact, it’s barely worth coining a collective noun for (though feel free, if you’re so inclined). And yet, when you look at what most European brands offer with cars like this in comparison and how much they expect to charge, you realise in an instant how serious these Asian brands are about making significant inroads into UK market share – and how well placed, on the face of things, they seem to be to make them.

The Jaecoo 7, then, is here to lock horns with the at least fairly wellestablished MG HS PHEV and the slightly less well-known but wellbacked BYD Seal UDM-i. It’s out to earn the favour of private and fleet buyers alike, who see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a family-sized, plug-in hybrid car for the sort of money that certainly wouldn’t buy them such a vehicle in very many other showrooms.

This car will be available as a conventional petrol-powered option as well, for less outlay still. However, it’s the PHEV version that the company behind it – Chinese manufacturing giant Chery, which also owns and operates the Omoda brand – expects to account for the greater part of the sales mix.

DESIGN &ENGINEERING

★★★☆ ☆

PROS Not punitively heavy; reasonable power and performance for the money

CONS Deeply derivative looks; electric range lags a little behind its competitors

While its sibling brand Omoda focuses on sleeker-looking crossovers, Jaecoo – whose name is a portmanteau of ‘Jaeger’, the German word for hunter or soldier, and, rather nauseatingly, ‘cool’ – will focus on more versatile, rugged and capable SUVs. Or so we are told.

Its debut model, the 7, can be had with part-time four-wheel drive as a conventional petrol variant, and the car’s 200mm of ground clearance and 600mm wading depth do indeed beat at least some mid-sized SUVs. But if Chery wanted to make a statement about the capability and ruggedness of its new Jaecoo brand, leading with a plug-in hybrid model that is resolutely front-wheel drive only, in a niche where at least one PHEV opponent does offer four driven wheels, seems a slightly odd choice.