First Drive: Does Chery’s Tiggo 8 break new SUV ground?

What is it?

It’s the larger of two SUVs from Chinese car maker Chery: a new brand to the UK, of sorts. Two of its cars arrived here last year wearing different badges – Omoda and Jaecoo – but such was their success that Chery bosses have decided to bring a whole other range of cars here too.

The Tiggo 8 shares most of its underpinnings and engines with the slightly-smaller Tiggo 7, but gains an extra pair of seats in the boot. As a result, Chery reckons this is the cheapest seven-seat SUV you can buy in the UK – assuming you don’t count the Dacia Jogger, that is.

It also gets the title of the cheapest seven-seat plug-in hybrid: partially because there aren’t many of those anyway, but largely because of its rather tempting price tag.

What’s new?

The Tiggo 8 has never been sold here before, so in a word, everything. Like the smaller Tiggo 7 though, it borrows quite a few parts from the Jaecoo 7 and Omoda 5 – most obviously the pair of engines.

Despite the similarities to its smaller sibling, the Tiggo 8 does feel quite a bit fresher – mainly on the inside, where you’ll find slightly posher materials and much newer tech.

What’s under the bonnet?

Just as in the Tiggo 7, there’s both a 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine, and a 1.5-litre plug-in hybrid – both of which get automatic gearboxes (of sorts). The former is the cheapest, and gets just 145bhp to play with – slightly less than you might hope for in a car that can carry seven people.

We’ve not driven a Tiggo 8 with the regular 1.6 petrol, but after some time in a Tiggo 7 with the same powertrain, it’s not one we’d recommend. Instead, here we’re concentrating on the 1.5 ‘Super Hybrid’ PHEV version, which costs a little more, but is far quicker off the mark: managing 0-60 in 8.5 seconds, rather than 9.8.

More impressively, Chery reckons it can manage 56 miles on electricity alone: substantially more than even many pricier rivals. It’s possible to charge it using a CCS rapid charger, too – the like of which fully electric cars can use, but most PHEVs cannot.

What’s it like to drive?

In terms of ride and handling, the Tiggo 8 isn’t quite so clever. It floats along the road and rolls around corners slightly disconcertingly – not helped by a rather detached feeling from the steering.

This, combined with a rather high driving position, puts you more in mind of an old-school 4×4 than a more modern SUV. There are hints of Land Rover Discovery or Toyota Land Cruiser about the way you peer out of the Chery from 6ft in the air – not necessarily a bad thing, but rivals like the Nissan X-Trail feel more car-like to drive.

It does at least deal with lumps and bumps in the tarmac reasonably well: it’s more comfortable than quite a few more expensive rivals, and with double glazing as standard, in some ways it’s quieter too.

In PHEV guise at least, it’s also eerily refined. In most circumstances, it uses electric motors to whisk you along – meaning that the majority of the time, this is a PHEV that feels and performs far more like a fully electric car.

It is, genuinely, quite impressive: feeling far smoother, quieter and quicker than many other PHEVs on the market. The only thing to break the silence is road noise – probably down to the slightly less-than-premium tyres Chery fits as standard.

How does it look?

Much like the rest of the Tiggo range, the 8 doesn’t try particularly hard to stand out against the competition. There are hints of a few other cars here – Hyundai Santa Fe, Ford Kuga from a decade ago, and perhaps even a little Audi Q4 at the front.

But it looks more premium than a car of this price has any right to. Unlike some more ‘budget’ cars, which seem to punish you with unpainted plastic elements and tiny wheels, the Tiggo 8 gets lashings of chrome, attractive alloy wheels, and even flush door handles that fold out electrically. It could pass for a much more expensive car – albeit perhaps one from 2015, not 2025.

What’s it like inside?

Thankfully, things are much more modern when it comes to the interior. The Tiggo 8 adopts that oh-so-2025 trend of sticking an enormous touch screen in the centre of the dash, much like a Tesla Model 3. Other elements get the same faux-Mercedes treatment as the smaller Tiggo 7, its circular metallic-looking speaker grilles in particular.

Things certainly look opulent at a first glance – the Tiggo 8 does a very good impression of an expensive car, with materials attractively layered together across the dash and doors. The synthetic leather and suede bits are quite obviously not the real thing, but they still feel high quality and hard-wearing.

Only a handful of elements give the game away: one being the sharp, plasticky indicator stalk that unfortunately, you’ll need to interact with daily. But on the whole, compared to a more outwardly budget brand like Dacia, the Tiggo feels like stepping out of economy and into business class.

It’s also, for its dimensions, really quite spacious. There’s miles of headroom in the rear, and leg room isn’t bad either. Even adults will be able to clamber into the two rearmost seats, though you’ll need to slide the middle row forward a few inches in order to give them any leg room.

Boot space is competitive too: there’s room for a few shopping bags even with all seven seats in place, and folding them down creates a 739-litre space – slightly more than that of a Skoda Kodiaq.

What’s the spec like?

Chery has really gone to town with the standard equipment, with even the entry-level Tiggo 8 coming brimming with equipment. All models get wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, an inductive phone charging pad, ‘540-degree’ around-view cameras, and an electrically-adjustable drivers seat.

Top-spec Summit models get an electric sunroof and powered tailgate, head up display, heated and ventilated seats in the first two rows, and even a reclining massage chair for the front passenger. All Tiggo 8s get adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, an integrated dash cam and a whole heap of other safety gear.

As for that enormous touch screen, that’s not half bad either: responsive to use, attractive to look at, and sensibly laid out in terms of menus. That’s just as well, as you’ll need it to change almost everything about the car – from heating and air conditioning, down to adjusting the door mirrors.

Plug-in hybrid models also get an app to pre-heat or cool the car, while on 1.6-litre petrol models you’ll find a handy remote start button on the key fob – letting you turn on the engine and defrost the car while leaving the doors safely locked.

Verdict

In many ways, the Tiggo 8 feels like the bargain of the century. It’s the cheapest seven-seat SUV by a country mile – but despite that, also one of the most lavishly equipped. Pick a plug-in hybrid version, too, and you’ll find a very impressive and mostly silent powertrain. It’s perhaps not as pleasant to drive as some European or Japanese rivals, but for the money, that’s easy to forgive.