Chery Tiggo 9 review

Be honest, after reading the spec sheet do you really care? Don’t answer that, I’ll tell you anyway. Normally this is the longest section of the review, where we spend thousands of words poring over the granularity of the steering feel and nuggety-ness of the suspension, but here that all seems a little superfluous. I’m not saying how a car steers isn’t important – making cars harmonious and satisfying from behind the wheel is what separates the great from the average, but it’s clear that out-handling a BMW was never on Chery’s priority list. 

For example – the steering offers little feedback and a strange springy, elasticated self-centring sensation. Weird at first, yes, but a deal-breaker? Nope, it’s a quirk that you quickly adapt to. Similarly the suspension – on decent road surfaces the car floats along serenely, wind and road noise is well suppressed, the stereo hits loud and clear. But find a potholed stretch and it clunks over cracks rather than fully rounding them off. Again, not a deal-breaker or particularly painful, but worthy of note. And while body control is fine at a cruise, push a little harder and the damping gets ragged fairly quickly. 

There are modes to play with if you so wish – Eco, Normal, Sport, Snow, Sand and Off-Road. Normal does the job just fine, in Sport the throttle is a mite too eager. The buttons you’ll play with more often is the one locking it in EV mode, or hitting recharge to build up some battery for later. Otherwise the system makes the decisions for you, flipping between pure EV running and the engine (which does directly drive the front wheels when required) chiming in where necessary. 

Does it hit the claimed numbers?

Bizarrely, Chery chose not to launch their seven-seat family SUV on a drag strip, so no confirmation of that Type R-smoking 0-62mph time. However, my right foot and buttocks can confirm it feels properly rapid – even in EV-only mode – when you floor the throttle. In fact, the sensation of driving the Tiggo 9 is of piloting a powerful, pure-EV SUV, with an occasional hum from up front the only reminder you’re dragging around and engine, too. It zips away from a standstill, and keeps you pinned. 

We only had a few hours with it, so impossible to corroborate that 91-mile EV-only range, but on our mixed route we saw a figure slightly higher than the combined 40.9mpg. 

As fast as a Civic Type R? 

Yes. As satisfying? Er, no. All that power is great for the occasional overtake, but there’s a strange surge when you come off the throttle after gunning it that reminds you this is not what the car was designed for. Far better to kick back, keep things docile and within the chassis’ means, and go about your day. At that point it’s a stress-free way to travel. 

And what about the stopping?

Ah yes, the braking force is strong enough but there’s a weird grabbiness to them in the final few mph before coming to the standstill. For the first few journeys, as your foot learns to modulate, we’d warn passengers not to sip piping hot drinks.