Styling
It has been a trend of manufacturers of the past, when trying to break into the age-old European markets, to copy the establishment when it comes to styling. The Korean and, even further back, the Japanese brands were beggars for that sort of thing back in the day, before they all got their own design languages and started forging clearer paths in the western automotive hemisphere. Well, now the Chinese are up to the same trick. We're not saying the Chery Tiggo 7 is a blatant imitation of any existing crossover-SUV in its class, but cor blimey, it doesn't half look like a facelifted
Ford Kuga when you view it from a low-down, front-three-quarter perspective. It's even redolent of something from its homeland, the previous-generation
MG HS. If you squint a bit.
By no means ugly, the Chery Tiggo 7 is nevertheless inoffensively derivative, and therefore turns out to be just blandly safe in the styling stakes. On the 18-inch wheels which are fitted to all specifications, it's handsome enough that it shouldn't ever put anyone off who has wandered into a Chery showroom for an inquisitive look around the place. But, by the same token, take a good look at the Tiggo 7, then close your eyes, and try and remember any single definitive detail of its appearance. You can't, can you? No, because it's basically 4.5 metres of utterly generic SUV. Take the Chery badges off it and you could stick almost any other manufacturer's insignia (no, not the Vauxhall) on the front of it, and no one would be any the wiser.
Interior
The interior of the Chery Tiggo 7 follows another pattern of recent Chinese automotive adventurers to these shores, in that the cabin looks very swish at first glance - there's a nice blend of shapes, forms and materials swathing the fascias (although we could well do without fake carbon-fibre trim in a cheap-o family SUV with 147hp like this), there's plenty of tech neatly integrated into the layout, and you get lots and lots of equipment for your money.
However, also like some other Chinese pioneer vehicles we've sampled in recent years, you do start to find some sub-standard finishes when you start prodding about and operating things. The seats, for instance, which are supposed to be man-made leather, ought to really be called vinyl; they don't feel like cow hide at all. Mind, that'll please animal lovers, so maybe this isn't bad news. Anyway, moving on, some of the plastics located lower down in the Chery's interior come across as cut-price to the touch, while the cappings for the A-pillars are particularly flimsy. There are also foibles with the way the twin 12.3-inch digital screens work, but in the main these are all minor observations and, overall, the Tiggo 7's interior is a largely successful effort.
Practicality
There's good space in the back of the Chery Tiggo 7, to the point that a couple of taller people back there ought to be no drama, while the sort of occupants the company envisages sitting in the rear most often - namely, children in a family unit - will be generously accommodated. A boot rated at 426 litres is not pulling up any stumps in this particular segment, but it's decent enough and nicely enough shaped that it should prove to be useful for swallowing clobber and other associated detritus from family life.
Performance
Chery will offer the Tiggo 7 with a plain petrol drivetrain, which is what we're driving here, or a more potent plug-in hybrid (PHEV) set-up, which is adapted from that found in the
Omoda 9 SHS (among more cars from Jaecoo and Omoda). Neither is particularly punchy, with 147hp from the 1.6-litre turbo four in the car we're testing here, or 204hp from the PHEV that the company refers to as the CSH: Chery Super Hybrid.
Like the styling, this petrol-only drivetrain is totally anonymous. Make the four-cylinder unit up front rev out and you will hear a bit of raucous straining from it, while the on-road performance is reedy enough that the petrol Tiggo 7 sometimes feel like it doesn't have enough pace to get out of its own way; it's not helped in this regard by a particularly dim-witted dual-clutch transmission, which is tardy in the extreme when responding to big throttle inputs.
However, unless you need to perform an overtake on a two-lane trunk road, or you're heading up a particularly steep hill with the Chery fully loaded, the 1.6 performs perfectly fine in everyday traffic. It's smooth enough and quiet enough at lower revs to actually come across as sophisticated, and you don't hear much of its machinations at most realistic road speeds because the Chery 'Silent Glass' (a form of double-glazing in the glasshouse forward of the Tiggo's B-pillars) cuts out a lot of noise the motor is emanating to an impressive degree.
Running costs for the Chery Tiggo 7 ICE will be nothing out of the ordinary. Its quoted 40.4mpg is quite 2013, in all honesty, and we saw 33.2mpg from it on a relatively gently driven test route as well. Nevertheless, that was mainly on stop-and-go A-roads near the Welsh border, so on a longer motorway route the Chery ought to sip at its fuel a little more parsimoniously, which is what most folk will be doing with the Tiggo 7. For those who need better efficiency, there's always the PHEV instead.
Ride & Handling
You'll begin to spot a theme with this review here, but essentially the dynamic report card is that Chery's engineers have taken no risks whatsoever. This results in a vehicle which is about six-out-of-ten for all of the main kinematic parameters, like ride comfort, body control, wheel control, steering feel, brake bite and rolling refinement. Indeed, the steering is in truth a bit on the wishy-washy side, with little difference felt through the three selectable drive modes, and the brakes are a little mushy at the top of their travel (but not as poor as the pedal feel in the PHEV), and the Tiggo 7 leans and dives and pitches more than most comparable C-segment SUVs would do these days.
But it does nothing badly. And aside from its inability to deal with big transverse ridges and only moderately sunken manhole covers/potholes with any degree of good grace, the Tiggo 7 is admirably quiet and comfortable to travel along in. It's a forgettable experience being behind its wheel, yet that's possibly a good thing - because if it made egregious errors in any particular department, then you'd end up focusing on those as there's nothing that exciting to concentrate on instead. As it is, the way the Tiggo 7 drives is about as memorable as the way it looks on the outside.
Value
You can forgive the Chery Tiggo 7 for much of its lack of ambition when you see the price. It starts from 25 grand, the same money as a decent
Renault 5 E-Tech. That's astounding value for something that is acceptable in most regards, so you can see the Chery being a success.
Depending, of course, on the dealer network. It will
not be sold in the same showrooms as the Jaecoo and Omoda vehicles, which currently share their sites across the UK. Chery dealerships will probably be close to the Jaecoo/Omoda facilities that currently exist, naturally, but the idea is that Chery is a separate entity to the other two. Presently, Chery has more than 25 dealers in the UK but, by 2026, it hopes to have expanded that network to more than 100 sites.
The range structure for the Tiggo 7 is also phenomenally easy to understand. There are two trim levels, which are Aspire and then Summit, and the two drivetrains - ICE and PHEV. From that £24,995 starting point for an ICE Aspire, you add £3,000 to go to Summit specification, and then £5,000 trim-for-trim to switch to the PHEV drivetrain. That means an ICE Summit like we've tested here is £27,995, the PHEV Aspire is £29,995 and the PHEV Summit is £32,995. This proudly allows Chery to say the Tiggo 7 is the most affordable PHEV on sale in the UK today, which is a striking USP right there.
Equipment, as you'd expect, is generous on both trims. Aspire Tiggo 7s come with 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, the Silent Glass, a synthetic leather multifunction steering wheel with six-way power adjustment for the driver's seat, twin 12.3-inch LCD infotainment/cluster displays with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, front and rear parking sensors with a reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, a six-speaker audio system, keyless entry and go, adaptive cruise control, and enough standard-fit advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to ensure the Tiggo 7 has already picked up a commendable four-star Euro NCAP rating. The Summit specification adds heating and ventilation for the front seats, a powered tailgate, an opening panoramic sunroof, four-way electrical adjustment for the front passenger seat, illuminated door sills, puddle lights in the door mirrors, and an uprated eight-speaker Sony audio system.
Verdict
There's nothing spectacular about the Chery Tiggo 7 except the price, which makes it a proper bargain on these shores. Ordinarily, we'd muse about whether that would be enough to convince the usually snobbish British car buyers to take a punt on this Chinese newcomer, but given the way the related Jaecoo 7 seems to have taken off then we'd better just keep our mouths shut. The Tiggo 7 is a capable machine that doesn't do anything terribly wrong, so if you want something a bit different for your family transportation instead of just defaulting to anything boringly familiar like a
Hyundai Tucson, then the Chery is definitely worth checking out.
