- Refined and economical plug-in hybrid powertrain
- Well equipped and cheap to buy – though some rivals cheaper still
- Steering and high-speed ride disappoint; useability issues with some controls
The Jaecoo 7 is the most discussed car of 2026, and gives buyers a lot for their money, although its myriad features are far from niggle-free.
Overview
The Jaecoo 7 is a car we would presume needs no introduction to most UK dealers as of summer 2026. This would definitely not have been the case as recently as February last year, when the medium SUV became the Jaecoo brand’s first vehicle to be sold in the UK. However, its impact on the market has been impossible to ignore, with the model becoming a fixture in the new car registrations top 10 since last September, and really making headlines by being the UK’s most-registered car in the month of March this year. Overall, for the year-to-date, it’s in third place, according to Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) figures. Since launch, more than 53,000 Jaecoo 7s have been registered, with 66% of these to retail buyers, and it is available from more than 144 UK dealerships which Jaecoo shares with sister brand Omoda – parent company Chery International’s UK market efforts also include the eponymous Chery brand and the newest arrival, the premium Lepas brand.
The Jaecoo 7 arrived in the UK with a choice of 1.6-litre, 147PS petrol and 1.5-litre, 204PS plug-in hybrid powertrains – the latter, specced with three-quarters of UK Jaecoo 7s to date, featuring an 18.4kWh battery. The range recently gained a third powertrain option in the form of a 1.5-litre, 224PS hybrid. Petrol Jaecoo 7s are available with either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive depending on spec – hybrids and PHEVs are front-wheel drive only. The petrol engine comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, while the hybrid and plug-in hybrid come with a CVT auto.
Some of the Jaecoo 7’s sales success can be attributed to it offering the conspicuous SUV styling that so many of today’s buyers want, and the model does look imposing with its big front grille flanked by prominent air vents. We think it suits sombre colours such as the blue-grey of our test car, and also like the aerodynamic alloy wheels.
Although it’s drawn frequent tabloid comparisons with Range Rover models, more obvious rivals for the Jaecoo 7 are its fellow big-selling medium SUVs the Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai. The MG HS provides Chinese budget competition, as does the Jaecoo’s group cousin the Chery Tiggo 7.
Pricing and spec
Unusually, depending on which powertrain option you choose with the Jaecoo 7, you get a different line-up of trim options. Even more unusually, the least equipped trims come with the hybrid powertrain, with which there’s a choice of Pure and Deluxe. Petrol trims are Deluxe and Luxury (the latter with all-wheel drive), while plug-in hybrids come with a choice of Luxury and Black Luxury. Confusingly, trim levels with the same name across different powertrains have differing equipment levels.
Standard equipment with Pure trim includes 19-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, taillights and DRLs, automatic lights and wipers and dual-zone automatic air conditioning, while further features of Deluxe trim with hybrid cars include artificial leather seat upholstery, electrically adjustable front seats including driver’s seat lumbar support, heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, a heated steering wheel, an electric tailgate and a panoramic sunroof.
Petrol Deluxe cars then do without features such as the heated rear and ventilated front seats, which are then added back in by Luxury trim, along with features such as an eight-speaker Sony sound system, tinted rear windows and an air purification system. Black Luxury spec merely adorns Luxury spec with black exterior and interior trim elements.
Prices for hybrid Jaecoo 7s are £29,195 with Pure trim and £32,795 with Deluxe, petrol models are £30,115 with Deluxe trim and £33,945 with Luxury, and plug-in hybrids are £35,165 with Luxury trim and £36,500 with Black Luxury. These prices are a few thousand pounds cheaper than hybrid and plug-in hybrid Sportages – though the gap is closer with petrol cars. Hybrid Jaecoo 7s also start around £1,500 cheaper than mild hybrid Qashqais, and significantly more so than the Qashqai e-Power. However, the Jaecoo 7 itself is undercut by the MG HS and the Chery Tiggo 7 – and by a few thousand pounds with some equivalent specs.
Related reading: New car review: MG HS has impressive PHEV system, but can frustrate
The Jaecoo 7 comes with an impressive seven-year/100,000-miles warranty, for which the manufacturer recently announced an extended remit. Service intervals are one-year/10,000 miles.
Technology
The Jaecoo 7’s infotainment touchscreen measures 13.2 inches with Pure and petrol Deluxe cars – the rest of the range gets a 14.8-inch screen. This is certainly impressively large, although in some ways this size counts against it, since with its portrait orientation you have to look quite far down the dashboard to read information at the bottom, taking your eyes further from the road. Also, despite the screen’s large size some icons remain small and tricky to select, notably within Apple CarPlay – with which wireless connectivity is standard, as it is with Android Auto.
Climate controls are accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the touchscreen, which can be a bit fiddly at times, especially if you want to adjust the heated/ventilated seats which requires opening a fuller menu.
On the subject of controls, the steering wheel touch buttons require a high level of accuracy to use, and the cruise control ones in particular aren’t that clearly labelled, hurting user-friendliness.
All Jaecoo 7s come with a 10.25-inch driver display, and Deluxe hybrid and Luxury cars also get a usefully prominent head-up display – although this doesn’t integrate Apple CarPlay navigation instructions.
Safety
As is common with cars from Chinese brands, the Jaecoo 7 comes stacked with driver assistance systems. Notable ones include blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic braking, intelligent evasion and curve speed control assist. Drivers get to choose from both adaptive cruise control and the more advanced intelligent cruise assist – we found the latter to be too controlling of the steering for our liking. Functions such as overspeed warnings can be turned off should drivers wish via a shortcut menu accessed by swiping down from the top right of the infotainment screen.
A 540-degree parking camera system, standard with petrol and plug-in hybrid Jaecoo 7s, is highly comprehensive – though we find the traditional around-view camera more useful than the video game-style 3D view.
The Jaecoo 7 received a maximum five-star rating from safety testing organisation Euro NCAP in 2025, scoring strongly across occupant and vulnerable road user protection and assist system categories.
Driving experience
With the plug-in hybrid powertrain we tested, sprightly acceleration is on offer, with a strong and responsive EV-style power delivery. The petrol engine is mostly used to charge the battery, only helping to drive the wheels directly under heavy acceleration. The engine is quiet when called upon – it sometimes pipes up unexpectedly when the battery level is reduced, since the car never allows the battery to reach 0% charge, but because of the low volume this is easy to ignore.
The 18.4kWh plug-in hybrid battery offers an official EV-only range of up to 56 miles under WLTP testing, and unusually for a plug-in hybrid can be DC charged at up to 40kW, allowing a 30-80% charge in 20 minutes – although given the relatively high cost of public charging this may be of questionable benefit.
Getting near the official WLTP combined fuel economy figure of 403mpg will of course require regular charging. We’re not able to supply a full figure for our time with the car due to its trip computer only tracking economy over a rolling 31 miles, but we did record 67.3mpg on our last trip with it, achieved over a mix of motorway, town and B-road driving with a mostly depleted battery.
Unusually for a plug-in hybrid, there is no ignition key slot or starter button – the car simply starts automatically when you climb aboard and press the brake pedal, like with many EVs. The same is true in reverse, although if you don’t trust this (we found it a bit strange to get out and walk away from the car with the radio still playing) there is the option to power off manually via the touchscreen.
Dynamic drawbacks include the steering, which is very light and also woolly, meaning more concentration than usual is required to steer the car during normal driving. This doesn’t help the rather wallowy handling, with quite a soft front end – though the suspension is at least composed over undulations. Low speed ride comfort is decent too, with the suspension taking the harsh edges off bumps well, but this only works up to a point – bigger ruts in the road at higher speeds cause sizeable thuds.
Practicality
With the Luxury trim of our test car, although there’s quite a lot of leather-type material around the Jaecoo 7’s cabin, we wouldn’t say the overall impression is of premium quality, with a lack of heft to some of the underlying trim – although it is nice to have soft surfaces everywhere a driver might put their elbows. The cabin design itself – giant screen aside – is not what you’d call exciting.
Even with the sunroof fitted with our test car spec, rear headroom is good, as is legroom, and a flat rear floor also makes it easy to move around back there. Rear vents and USB ports are provided.
At 500 litres the Jaecoo 7’s boot is not one of the biggest in the segment, although unlike with many cars the plug-in hybrid’s boot is the same size as with the other powertrains. There is underfloor storage which can accommodate the charging cable. The boot lip is near flat – although quite high – and there’s a roll-up parcel shelf/luggage cover.
