Jaecoo 7: Chery on the SUV cake

The Jaecoo 7 is that rare thing – a car that is also a social phenomenon. It’s (another) Chinese-made SUV from a manufacturer, Chery Group, that not many Britons have heard of (though a global player). It hasn’t made it into the Guinness Book of Records, or the Museum of Modern Art in New York, nor starred in a Bond movie. And yet here we are. The cars only started arriving in the UK at the end of 2024; it’s become a bestseller, a familiar sight on the roads and acquired the nickname “the Temu Range Rover”. Zero to aspirational in one and a half years – impressive acceleration.

That “Temu Range Rover” thing wasn’t a publicity stunt by the company. It emerged from genuine Jaecoo owners on TikTok, and the Daily Mail, acutely attuned always to the subtly shifting substrata of the British class system, deciding that it was “a thing”.

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To my mind, the best way to comprehend this is to draw an analogy with how elements of the middle classes started a trend by abandoning Waitrose (upmarket, expensive, like a Range Rover) and turning to Aldi or Lidl (value oriented, like the Temu e-marketplace and Jaecoo) for at least some of their purchases, especially the kind of continental products the German groups knew well, such as proper chocolate, palatable wines and real salamis (scarcer post-Brexit).

The cost of living crisis helped the credibility of the idea – why wouldn’t the shrewder consumer get most of what a Range Rover offers at half the price, and some tempting leasing deals for business users? Especially when Jaguar Land Rover wasn’t actually making any cars at all because it had been hacked by the Russians, so you couldn’t get a Rangie anyway. If I were UK boss of Jaecoo, I’d no doubt be pleased by the phenomenal sales figures, but feel that “the Temu Range Rover” label was a bit of a back-handed compliment.

Anyway, the Jaecoo 7 is nothing like a Range Rover, and that’s not an insult. It might bear some slight resemblance to one on the outside (the smaller Jaecoo 5 actually emulates many more of the familiar styling clues), but inside, there is none of the sense of occasion, style and opulence you feel in the “real thing”. I don’t actually believe Chery (which has a close commercial partnership with Jaguar Land Rover) even intended for its product to be directly compared, and still less harbours any illusions that the Jaecoo 7 would ever be a symbol of conspicuous consumption. I suspect, but cannot assert, that the Range Rover would be better off-road.

In any case, all Chery/Jaecoo has tried to do is to make something that could hold its own in a ridiculously overcrowded sector of the market. In that respect, it succeeded, and to my mind, a better comparison might be with a Nissan Qashqai, VW Tiguan, Skoda Karoq or MG HS. It certainly seats five adults with ease and has adequate luggage space. Mercifully, you won’t have to use the large touchscreen too much to get to basic functions. The car works.

Subjectively, I’d find it hard to choose between any of these models, and especially the Qashqai, which I like because it is British and is an extremely well-known quantity. The Jaecoo doesn’t lose much, if anything, to the others in the quality of its build or materials or, in the hybrid model I tested, performance. Indeed, such is the low-down combined strength of the petrol engine and electric motor that I actually managed to make the tyres squeal when I pressed the accelerator with less than my customary finesse – but the Jaecoo retained all of its composure.

No one will find anything too objectionable about it – the hazard warning bings are there on all new cars by law, and useful in my view – and it is available in every flavour – hybrid, plug-in hybrid and (less attractively for fiscal and environmental reasons) petrol (but no EV).

What fleet managers and business users particularly like is the “highly competitive” leasing deals, which Jaecoo says it is underpinning by ensuring that residual values are protected (ie, minimising the penalty of depreciation when translated into monthly costs). For private or business users, the plug-in hybrid is ideal for moderate commutes, which will be virtually free if the vehicle is charged at home overnight – the electric-only range is up to 56 miles.

What we cannot know yet about the Jaecoo, and the other new entrants from China, is whether those residual values will indeed withstand the volumes of cars making their way through the system, or what their long-term durability and reliability are like. There’s also some residual geopolitical risk that, basically, might mean getting spares would be harder in a trade war.

However, given the poor ratings Range Rovers sometimes receive in consumer surveys, this may turn out to be the one area in which Jaecoo genuinely beats its more lustrous rival, where it more than deserves equality of esteem. Indeed, such is the progress of the Chinese auto industry, one day we may think of the Range Rover as the “Temu Jaecoo”.

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