First Drive: Chery has launched its first model in the UK with the Tiggo 7, but is it any good?

What is it?

That’s right, it’s yet another Chinese compact SUV. The Tiggo 7 is the work of Chery: China’s biggest car exporter (take that, BYD). Its products have already been here for a year, hiding under a couple of pseudonyms – Omoda and Jaecoo.

The success of those two brands took the bigwigs in China a little by surprise – so much so that they’ve decided to bring the Chery brand itself to the UK as well, starting off with two really rather affordable SUVs.

The Tiggo 7 is the smaller of the two: a five-seater, roughly the size of a Kia Sportage or Nissan Qashqai, but with a considerably cheaper price tag than either.

That could make the Chery a bit of a bargain, then – but is this a case of ‘you get what you pay for?’

What’s new?

To the UK at least, this is an entirely new car. But strictly speaking, this particular generation of Tiggo 7 has been on sale in China and other markets for a few years – so this is at least quite a tried-and-tested car by now.

Less new to us are all the oily bits underneath: the Tiggo 7 shares its platform, engines and gearbox with the Omoda 5, a car that’s been on sale here since August last year.

You might also recognise a few shared interior parts between the two: the Chery’s steering wheel, infotainment system, gear selector and more are near enough identical to the Omoda’s.

What’s under the bonnet?

There’s both a petrol, and a plug-in hybrid version of the Tiggo 7 – the latter of which is (for the moment) the cheapest PHEV you can buy in the UK. It’s also helpfully cheaper than the equivalent version of the Jaecoo 7, with which it shares its powertrain.

We’re driving the cheapest Tiggo 7: the regular 145bhp 1.6-litre petrol, available exclusively with a seven-speed automatic gearbox. It’s sprightly enough in terms of performance, feeling quicker somehow than its 9.4 second 0-60mph figure would suggest. But that’s largely where the positives end. In our testing it wasn’t terribly fuel efficient, and as we’ll get on to later, not the most enjoyable to drive.

The PHEV version has a bit more to shout about. Chery says it’ll manage 56 miles on pure electricity alone, is usefully more powerful, and not a whole lot more expensive. It will even charge at higher speeds using a rapid charger, should you wish to do so.

What’s it like to drive?

Let’s start with the ride and handling. All things considered, the Tiggo 7 isn’t bad to drive – certainly not as polished as a lot of its competition, but there’s little you could say is truly awful.

The ride is a little on the roly-poly side, and yet not the most adept at absorbing bumps either. Its steering is just a tad vague too – trying to make small adjustments to the Tiggo 7’s direction can feel like a bit of a guessing game. But really, it’s fine: there’s little to really irritate or offend in the way the Chery goes down the road.

The powertrain is a different story – at least in the 1.6-litre version we drove. The Tiggo’s seven-speed automatic gearbox is incredibly dim-witted, pausing for breath and having a good long think every time you put your foot down.

Nor does it know how to make the best use of the torquey (but noisy) 1.6-litre turbocharged engine: changing down a gear and sending the revs soaring at times when, really, it doesn’t feel necessary. Frustratingly, it can’t seem to handle getting you smoothly out of junctions either: it tends to suddenly deploy all of the Tiggo’s power in one big lump, sending the front wheels spinning and scrabbling for grip.

A lot of this could likely be solved by software updates, and Chery quietly admits that these are on the way. But for now, it’s a rather tumultuous driving experience.

We’ve not driven the PHEV version of the Tiggo 7, but our experience in the Tiggo 8 with the same setup would suggest that this powertrain is a much better buy. It’s smooth, responsive and incredibly quiet – all the things the 1.6 petrol version isn’t.

How does it look?

These days, it can be hard for an SUV to stand out against the competition – so Chery appears to have decided not to bother in the first place. Ask ChatGPT to draw you a five door SUV and it would probably look something like the Tiggo 7: a mishmash of styling cues from all sorts of other cars.

To our eyes, it mostly resembles a shrunken (last generation) Hyundai Santa Fe – albeit with the rear of a Lexus NX grafted on for good measure.

The result is a car that actually looks a bit older than most of its peers. Chery would probably say that this is sort of the point: customers that want something snazzy-looking will go for either a more expensive Omoda or Jaecoo, after all. It’s not groundbreaking, and it’s not attention-grabbing – but nor is it ugly, and that’s fine.

What’s it like inside?

At first glance, the Tiggo 7 does a very good impression of a premium car – albeit one launched a decade ago, perhaps. A lot seems to have been inspired by the last generation Mercedes E-Class: attractive silver switches for the electric windows, circular metal-effect speaker grilles on the doors, and a centre console that looks eerily similar to Mercs of that era too. Even the start button could almost have been lifted wholesale out of a 2015 C- or E-Class.

It certainly feels plusher than other cars of this price: a Dacia Bigster’s dash looks spartan and basic by comparison. Only a few things give the game away: the front seats are flat and unforgiving, for example, and some of the fake leather scattered around the doors and dashboard won’t be convincing anyone that it’s come from a cow.

The slightly sombre exterior styling does at least mean excellent headroom, both front and rear – although legroom in the back is just okay, rather than exceptional. Boot space is also good: rivalling that of a Nissan Qashqai, even though the Chery miraculously fits a full-sized spare wheel under the floor too.

What’s the spec like?

This is where Chery really has gone to town. There’s only two trim levels, and even base-spec Tiggo 7s get tonnes of equipment bundled in. Electric adjustment for the drivers’ seat, wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, dual-zone climate control, rear view camera and parking sensors front and back are all standard.

For £3,000 more, Summit models add heated and cooled front seats, a wireless phone charger, electric boot lid, and what Chery calls a ‘540-degree’ panoramic camera, which offers a few more viewing angles than the average around-view monitor.

In terms of infotainment all Tiggo 7s get two 12.3-inch displays, both of which are pretty responsive and pleasantly laid out. Separate controls are provided for climate settings, but they’re touch sensitive and still require eyes off the road to operate – which of course the overly vigilant driver monitoring system will quickly reprimand you for doing.

Thankfully, it’s easy to turn off this – along with lane-keep assist and speed limit warning systems – by simply swiping down on the central touch screen and tapping a couple of icons.

Verdict

Occasional shortcomings aside, it’s hard to argue with the value offered by the Tiggo 7. Apart from price tag, there’s no one thing it does better than the competition – and it’s not even the most memorable SUV on sale from a Chinese manufacturer, let alone all the others on the market.

But as it’s a whole heap cheaper than almost all of the competition, it’s easy to forgive many of its shortcomings as a result. While we wouldn’t particularly recommend the thirsty (but cheap) 1.6 petrol version, the ‘Super Hybrid’ PHEV is certainly worth a look. It might be Britain’s cheapest PHEV, but in powertrain terms, it could also be one of the best.