The new Jaecoo 7, the first UK vehicle from the new ‘premium off-road’ brand, will arrive in in January, priced from £29,435 to take on rivals as broad as the Range Rover Evoque and Kia Sportage.
Created by Chinese car giant Chery, Jaecoo – a portmanteau of 'jäeger', the German word for hunter, and 'cool' – is a sister brand to Omoda, which was launched in the UK earlier this year.
While Omoda is focused on urban buyers seeking practicality, Jaecoo has a more upmarket and off-road focus. Affordability will be a key focus for both brands.
Chery's UK boss, Victor Zhang, said that Jaecoo offered “the best of traditional off-road and sport utility brands, mixed with cutting-edge technology and style”.
The 7 will be offered with petrol and plug-in hybrid powertrains. At 4500mm, it's slightly shorter than the Sportage, Hyundai Tucson and Volkswagen Tiguan and 100mm longer than the Omoda 5 with which it shares a platform.
The entry-level 7 will feature a 145bhp 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol engine driving the front wheels with 203lb ft of torque and an official economy of 37.7mpg.
A four-wheel-drive model with the same power unit will be priced from £32,850.
The 4WD plug-in hybrid range-topper combines a 1.5-litre turbo petrol four with an electric motor for total outputs of 201bhp and 229lb ft.
The motor draws power from an 18.3kW battery that gives the PHEV an electric-only range of 56 miles. Jaecoo claims a combined economy of 403mpg (47mpg with the battery depleted), which, with a 60-litre fuel tank, gives an overall range of 745 miles.
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This cheaply-built knock-off of an Evoque/Velar is not 'upmarket' at all. Please stop advertising cars and actually review them.
Unlike the LandWind Evoque copy, a car which no-one in China who could have afforded an Evoque would have purchased, this fraudulent copy is being sold in the UK as direct competition and should be treated with the contempt such an imitation deserves. We tolerated China-only fakes and copies, but now they're muscling in on our market, it is time to call these cars out for what they are.
By all means send litte EVs because Europe doesn't seem to be able to make them cheaply, but leave the luxury stuff to us.
I assume you've driven this SUV for a week or two??
Finally! Another Chinees brand and another SUV!
Someone at Autocar needs to actually look at the price of cars they compare. The Evoque starts at £43700. The other day you reviewed rhe new Volvo XC90 mentioning staring prices I the high £40s in the headline.