Jaecoo 7 review

Good question. A Jaecoo is the premium offshoot of Omoda. Which means we need to explain what an Omoda is: the SUV specialist within Chery.

Sigh. What do you mean ‘what’s a Chery’? That’s China’s fourth biggest carmaker you’ve never heard of. It shifts more metal than BMW manages worldwide. And its sights are set on Market Street, Britain.

So what we have here is a Chinese-speaking Lexus. A start-up brand attempting to tempt crossover-glugging, badge-obsessed Brits out of their beloved Audi Q3s and BMW X1s. No easy task, that. Ask the Jaguar E-Pace. Ask Infiniti. Oh, you can’t.

It’ll also attempt to make life harder for the Skodas, the Dacias, the Kias. The ones that traditionally caught on by offering more car for less cash. The Chinese reckon they can make them look positively stingy.

Is ‘Jaecoo’ someone’s name?

No, there’s no Mr or Mrs Jaecoo who sketched boxy Range Rover Evoque-ish SUVs by moonlight, dreaming of pinching sales from the Mercedes GLA.

Actually, Jaecoo is a contraction of ‘Jager’ and ‘cool’. So it’s a portmanteau, smooshing together the German term for ‘hunter’ – scared yet, Audi? – and an adjective in a clunky fusion of utter marketing bobbins. And because no-one’s heard of them yet, you’ll be explaining that anecdote. A lot.

What’s the battle plan to get Jaecoo established in the UK?

More than 70 dealerships currently open as of early 2025, with more coming soon, and a tactic of selling a car that’s seemingly a size bigger (and stocked with more kit) than its price. There’s a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty too.

Sounds familiar…

Yep – that’s what gained Hyundai and Kia a foothold in Britain. More peace of mind, more toys and more space than the established mainstream likes of Vauxhall or Ford. These days, the Koreas are big-hitters in the best-selling cars charts. Jaecoo wants to replicate that success, but insists it’s leaping above the mainstream to invade the hotly fought premium market with a ‘why are you paying for a German badge?’ attitude.

That’s why the range starts at less than £30,000, and even a top-spec hybrid is barely over £35k. For sub-German compact crossover money, you’re getting mid-size crossover space, and Korean levels of equipment.

Tell me about the car. Presumably it’s all-electric?

Surprisingly, no. Non-EV Chinese EVs do in fact exist.

At launch there are two propulsion choices: a petrol 1.6-litre turbo or a plug-in hybrid version offering a mighty 56 miles of electric range. Here Jaecoo’s got the cars in its crosshairs running for cover: while a BMW X1 plug-in hybrid goes about as far on a charge, your wallet is also charged a lot more. Around £8,000 more. An electrified Mercedes GLA offers only 42 miles in reply and yet costs from £47,000.

What else?

Otherwise, it’s your tame suburban SUV. Jaecoo promises the AWD 7 will have genuine off-road ability – we’ll report back once we’ve been let loose in a quarry. Claims of 600mm wading depth bode well. It’s very roomy, seems well put-together and about as memorable as the contents of your fridge which you’re peckish.

The road to being taken seriously as a premium car brand is paved with noble failures. Infiniti. Pre-2025 Jaguar. Alfa Romeo. Maserati. Genesis is struggling and Lexus has slashed its European product line-up. Challenging the Germans when it comes to making clinical, austere SUVs is like trying to start an anti-Liverpool FC chant from the heart of The Kop end. You’re heavily outnumbered and momentarily getting your head kicked in.

But from acorns, mighty oaks and all that. The Chinese carmakers are here to play the long game, and you’ve only got to look at the sales figures (and customer satisfaction ratings) for the likes of MG in the UK to see there’s always a market for aggressively priced and well-appointed, easy-going runabouts. How many MG HS owners care their monthly payments are addressed to Shanghai, not Longbridge?

Jaecoo’s challenge will be shoring up brand recognition in the end of the market where brand is everything. Audi, BMW and Mercedes buyers know full well they could spend less and get more power, space equipment elsewhere. They choose not to, because of what they hope that choice of vehicle says about their aspirations and lifestyle.

At the moment, Jaecoo’s invisible. It doesn’t ‘say’ anything about you. Whether it can achieve the critical mass needed to stick the landing among umpteen small SUVs depends on more than getting bums on seats. It needs the heck marketing out of it. If that works, the car is fine.

There’s not much for a TopGear reader to sink their teeth into here. Nothing mind-blowingly innovative, but since when did that matter to the likes of the big-selling Nissan Qashqai, Vauxhall Mokka or um, ooh, what’s it called, you know the one? The whaddjamacallit. They’re everywhere…