- Chery Tiggo 7 Super Ultimate is massive
- But the plug-in hybrid barely uses any fuel
Forget those new wage-cage unit blocks popping up along city railway lines. Forget the talk of small modular nuclear reactors. What we really need in Australia are huge car parks full of the Chery Tiggo 7 Super Ultimate.
Terrible mouthful of a name, but, jeez, what a car!
Housing crisis? Pah. Immigration crisis? Pah. Give every new family arriving in Australia the keys to their very own Tiggo and an assigned car park spot – problem solved.
I cannot stress enough how much room there is inside this Chinese-made Tardis – and how unbelievably frugal it is with fuel.
At 4.5m long, nearly 2m wide and taller than me, the top-of-the-range Tiggo 7 feels like it has more space than my first apartment. The boot alone could accommodate a small family of four fleeing Sydney’s rental market.
There is so much room inside the flagship SUV, I had to use the Find My app on my iPhone just to track down my wife when she ventured into the back seat.
This Temu Range Rover looks like it should cost at least seventy grand, but it actually comes in at a ridiculous $43,990 drive-away for the plug-in hybrid model.
Under that expansive bonnet lurks a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine mated to an electric motor, producing a combined 255kW of power and a total 525Nm of torque.
That’s enough to catapult this 1.9-tonne leviathan to 100km/h in a brisk 8.2 seconds – which actually feels faster – and is quicker than many hot hatches from a decade ago.
The truly shocking thing though is how frugal this thing is, despite all those impressive numbers.
I took it to work every day for a week, did a road trip into the NSW Blue Mountains, and two separate trips up to Sydney’s northern beaches (because once wasn’t enough to believe what I was seeing on the fuel gauge).
At the end of all that, it had only sipped about 15 litres of fuel and still had 30 per cent battery left.
My old petrol SUV would have burned through 15 litres just getting to Palm Beach and back once. The Tiggo 7 did that twice, plus a week of city driving, plus a mountain adventure, and barely touched the sides.
And it kept regenerating the battery itself in the process too. I never went near a plug point all week, yet it kept topping itself up while still sipping languidly from the fuel tank, like a great aunt with a dry sherry at Christmas.
This is some mighty powerful fuel voodoo magic that has me seriously reconsidering the Tesla in my garage. Running costs are near to zero for the Tiggo.
Officially it’s claimed to have up to 1200km range from its 60-litre tank – real world estimates run between 730 and 870km, but that’s still Sydney to Melbourne on a single tank.
Rumour has it though that no-one has ever actually run out of fuel while driving one to properly test it…
The hybrid system works seamlessly, switching between electric and petrol power without you noticing.
It unleashes its power like a sports car, arriving in a bit of a thud which, coupled with the ride which favours comfort over handling, leads to a slightly unsettling see-saw effect under hard acceleration.
But that ride quality is exceptional. Bumps are absorbed with finesse, and even Sydney’s crater-sized potholes are dispatched without drama. Yet it never feels floaty or disconnected.
And there’s still a tautness to the suspension that keeps everything feeling controlled and planted.
And then there’s the turning circle. For a vehicle this size, it has no business being able to turn as tightly as it does. Three-point turns become two-point turns.
Parallel parking is easy and even navigating the notoriously twisty-turning spirals of Sydney’s inner city car parks is astonishingly easy despite its hulking bulk.
Inside, the space is simply breathtaking. The second row has legroom that would make business class passengers weep with envy. Two adults can sit back there in genuine comfort, and there’s still room for a third if you’re feeling sociable.
The boot swallows a week’s worth of shopping without breaking a sweat, and with the rear seats folded, you could comfortably transport a small furniture store.
The equipment level is absurd for the price. You get a panoramic sunroof, heated and ventilated leather seats, a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster, a 12.3-inch touchscreen, wireless phone charging, a 360-degree camera system, adaptive cruise control, and a top quality sound system for the price point.
There’s ambient lighting that cycles through more colours than a Sydney Mardi Gras parade – colour-coded to whatever driving mode you’re in, so green for eco, red for sport and blue for normal – and just enough USB ports for a family on the move.
The seats are very comfortable, and the driving position is spot-on. Visibility is excellent, which is important when you’re piloting something this large.
With all that said though, there are few design choices I would have skipped or changed that belie its Chinese heritage – the odd cheap tin finish to the large door speakers for example.
And the constant face-scanning safety features are very very very annoyingly naggy. Very. No, really. VERY.
But ignore them and you could be inside a Range Rover. Of course, though, you’re not – and that is the biggest issue the Tiggo faces.
It’s a cracking family car – and for this price, with this performance, this much space and this spec, it’s an absolute bargain.
But therein lies the problem. The badge remains a hurdle for some buyers. Chery doesn’t have the cachet of non-Chinese rivals, and there are still lingering doubts about Chinese car quality and reliability.
Whether those concerns are justified remains to be seen, but Chery does offer a seven-year warranty, which suggests they’re confident in their product.
But here’s the thing: if you can get past the badge snobbery, this is one of the best value propositions in the Australian car market right now.
If this is the kind of car you need, it’s an amazing package.
The Chery Tiggo 7 Super Ultimate plug-in hybrid is a terrible name but proof that you don’t need to spend a fortune to get a really good car anymore.
And in an era where everything seems to be getting more expensive, like, say, housing and power bills, that’s a very refreshing and welcome change.
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