Another new Chinese to our country: this is the Jaecoo 7

Last week we visited Chery in Wuhu, China, the car manufacturer who is busy preparing its European and therefore also Dutch adventure. There we were introduced to the Omoda E5, an electric compact crossover that will make its debut in Dutch showrooms next spring. You will soon be able to read that driving impression in AutoWeek 45, but we also got to see and even drive briefly the Jaecoo 7, another model that made its Dutch appearance shortly after the Omoda. No, we are not talking about the Omoda Jaecoo, as you might think. Jaecoo is a separate brand.

What’s up with that? Chery is only number 9 in China in terms of volume (1.2 million cars per year), but because more than a third of that production goes by the wayside, Chery is the number 1 car exporter in China. So far, these cars mainly go to Russia, Indonesia, the Middle East and South and Central America. Western Europe should be added, it was decided in the management offices in Wuhu. While the cars drive around in their own country under the name Chery or Exeed, several brand names have been devised for export. Jaecoo means something like ‘tough hunter’ in China and it is an SUV with muscles, as Chery wants us to believe by letting us drive around a ‘very dangerous and challenging track’. Read: an empty piece of land on which they have dumped a few buckets of sand. Even the undersigned’s MX-5 would have settled this matter with its fingers in the nose, but that’s besides the point. Unfortunately, only the petrol version is available to us, so we will have to give you a driving impression for a while.

We only get the electric Jaecoo 7 (we’re guessing it will be called E7) and its Dutch market introduction is scheduled for September next year. For the Jaecoo 7, Chery mainly looked closely at Range Rover models and the model should be a Chinese alternative to an Evoque, an employee of the brand tells us casually. Would we pay the same price for it as for an Evoque, if the Jaecoo is larger than the Range Rover?

The carriage measures 450 x 187 x 168 cm (lxwxh) and the wheelbase is 265 cm. The interior is sleek and spacious, with a large, portrait screen for infotainment and level 2 autonomy. Chery has not yet released details about the electric powertrain. We suspect that the entire car does not yet exist, because of the many Chery products we see, not one is an electric Jaecoo 7. We did see a plug-in hybrid and a well-cleaned up concept (latest photos ).

So we’ll have to wait and see, but there is still some time. First Chery kicks off with the Omoda E5, April 2024 to be precise. The Jaecoo 7 was released in September of that year and sometime around New Year’s Eve 2024-2025, Chery even brought a third brand, called Exlantix, to our country.