Job one when assessing the Volvo EX30 Cross Country is figuring out what it’s actually for. It is, after all, an all-wheel-drive, jacked-up SUV, yet its pure electric driveline tends to preclude it from attacking the Oodnadatta Track.

Its performance aspirations are clear, too, with twin electric motors delivering a combined 315kW of thrust and 543Nm. But a kerb mass of just shy of two tonnes will always see it playing in the forwards, rather than on the wing.

In reality, the transformation to the Cross Country version of the EX30 is a pretty commonly used move from the Volvo playbook and has been for decades now. You add some wheel arch extensions, bigger wheels and tyres, all-wheel-drive, hike the ride height and call it a Cross Country. The end result certainly looks interesting with a distinctly SUV set of general proportions, but some truly Scandi-Fwooar detailing.

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So, trips to the snowfields, then? Sure, and it’ll get you to the chain-bays pretty damn quick with a 0-100km/h time of sub-four seconds. What about impressing the neighbours? Another big thumbs up; the interior is funky as all get out with the square steering wheel, and the groovy, cast aluminium (that’s what they look like, anyway) interior door handles give the thing some real wow factor.

But you can’t help wondering whether all that calculated cool is at the expense of some practicality. For instance, the lack of instruments dead-ahead of the driver mean all the info is displayed Tesla-style on a portrait-mounted central screen. A head-up display would soften the collision between fashion and form here, but there isn’t one (a head-up display, that is).

The Volvo is far from huge inside, either, with a luggage capacity of 318 litres, although that expands to 1000 litres if you fold the rear seat down.

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The performance speaks for itself, but there’s always the EV question-mark of what happens to range if you start to get cheeky with the accelerator pedal. As it is, Volvo claims a 417km range and energy usage is a relatively high 19.1kWh per 100km. On a three-phase 16-amp socket (which almost nobody has at home) you’re looking at a charge time of eight hours, while a DC fast-charger will take the 69kW battery from 10 to 80 per cent charged in 28 minutes. Decent numbers, but nothing earth-shaking.

Sticking with the physics for a moment, the EX30’s ride and handling equation is likewise determined by falling apples and text books. Thanks to the kerb mass of the Cross Country, not to mention the unsprung weight of those big wheels and tyres, the engineers have been required to fit springs to suit. The end result is far from terrible, but if you pay attention, there’s a sense that the small-bump ride is being compromised by the large bump control. But the EX30 is in good company there.

Other elements, however, are pure Volvo including the comprehensive safety kit that includes a centre air-bag, whiplash protection built into the seats, Isofix points, a Harman Kardon stereo and a five-year Google Assistant subscription.

You’ll like it, but will you love it?

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Specs

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Now with self-driving capability – love it or not – the Model Y attempts to reinvent itself in an ever-deepening crowd of not just electric options, but efficient hybrids and plug-in hybrids, too.

That love-it-or-not theme is a common one also, not just with electric vehicles in general, but with the Tesla brand in particular. The reality is, though, Tesla puts forward an incredibly compelling case for those of you wanting to move into the EV realm. In regard to value, and we’ll look at the Model Y specifically in a minute, Tesla has the market at its mercy.

Its public charging infrastructure is better and more extensive than any other. And it works. All the time. Tesla’s app is easier and more intuitive to use than the competition, and the way in which the app controls the car is immediately evident as being designed by people who understand modern technology. Quite simply, the all-round Tesla ‘ecosystem’ (to use a modern branding term), is second to none.

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Wheels chose the middle of the range, the Long Range AWD, which starts from $68,900 before on-road costs, as the smart-money pick in the line-up. It continues the value story with twin motors, an 81kWh lithium-ion battery pack, 286kW and 510Nm, 0-100km/h in 4.8 seconds and a WLTP claimed range of 600km.

The judges noted efficiency as a strong point, too, with Tesla’s claim of 13.8kWh/100km extremely close to the figures you’ll get in the real world. In many cases, you’ll get an even better return.

The new Model Y’s styling has been sharpened up, ensuring it looks more contemporary than the old model, which had started to age somewhat. Negatives are few and none of them reflect the way the Model Y behaves or drives. The glass roof, for example, which can be covered with an optional clip-in shade, is good in theory, but can’t cope with the roasting Aussie sun in the middle of summer.

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The lack of a driver’s display, head-up display or gauge cluster of any kind, is a deal breaker in the eyes of the judging team. Likewise, the move away from a shift stalk on the steering wheel, and the replacement of that with a touch and slide function – again on the screen – which is neither intuitive or easy to decipher.

“Stupid, silly, nonsensical, unnecessary.” All terms used by the judging team to describe some of Tesla’s choices. In this instance, Tesla has gone a little too far. However, integrating rear seat entertainment into an 8.0-inch screen that also controls temperature and ventilation in the second row? That’s genius.

Annoyances aside, the Tesla infotainment screen works incredibly well once you work out its complexities. It’s still unfathomable that there’s no smartphone-mirroring connectivity either, Tesla still sticking to its ‘use our system’ guns, for better or worse. Storage space is excellent – 938L out to 2022L when you fold down the second row.

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The big change for this update, though, is the quality of the ride and bump absorption, which has been markedly improved along with general refinement – most specifically, inside the cabin. The judging team noted the quality of the interior insulation on Lang Lang’s ride and handling course, a section of coarse chip designed to unsettle the best cars on the market.

The judges agreed that the Model Y is a car that should absolutely be on your shopping list if you’re considering a switch to electric. It’s competent, solid, excellent to drive and energy efficient.
Let’s leave the self-driving functionality to cartoons and sci-fi movies for the moment, though.

Specs

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Maybe it’s because the brand itself is part of the landscape. Perhaps it’s the fact that the car in question knows what it is, where it fits in and who’s buying it. Maybe it’s because there are no pretensions or inflated boasts to harpoon during the first drive. Whatever, the Subaru Forester is four-wheeled comfort food.

Lacking the Darth-Vader styling of some of its mid-sized SUV peers, and without the buzzing, whirring pure-electric driveline that continues to polarise the marketplace, the Forester is wholesome and satisfying. Just like Grandma used to make.

That said, just as time-honoured recipes get constantly tweaked, the latest Forester has grown an evolved hybrid element to its driveline, in this case a pair of electric motors teamed with the trademark flat-four petrol engine. But don’t assume the two motors act directly on the front and/or rear axles, because this technology – borrowed from Toyota, it should be noted – is quite a bit more sophisticated than that.

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The 2.5-litre petrol engine is connected inline with the first electric motor, the latter providing starting duties for the flat-four as well as charging the hybrid battery. The second electric motor is the bigger hitter, is also mounted inline and provides drive to the wheels as well as harvesting otherwise lost power through regenerative braking. The combined 145kW and 276Nm then drive through what’s called an E-CVT, although that’s a bit misleading. That’s because this is a CVT that uses no belts or cones, but instead calls on compound planetary gearsets (like a conventional automatic) and then sends the (moderate) urge through a transfer case and centre differential to each wheel.

The result is a car that maintains mechanical (rather than mechanical/electric) all-wheel-drive and allows Subaru to cut-and-paste its ‘symmetrical four-wheel-drive’ paragraph from the old brochure to the new one.

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Although Subaru tags the system as a ‘Strong Hybrid’, the apparent gains are less chest-pounding. Sure, the Forester never feels lame nor lacking the will to accelerate, but equally, there are other hybrid systems that are clearly calculated and calibrated to offer more zing. And 6.2 litres per 100km? Not bad, but no PHEV.

But the driveline is smooth and flexible even if, after all these years, the horizontally opposed layout still plays that familiar, quirky tune.

The steering is vice-free, logical in its gearing and weight, and bordering on actually entertaining. The Forester never actually encourages you to press on, but you may just find yourself doing so anyway… it’s that sort of car.

The Forester’s other point of difference remains its off-road chops and, while the Sube won’t take you to The Cape on the Old Telegraph Track, it will get you to mountain-bike tracks and campsites that plenty of other SUVs with bulging wheel-arch flares and chunky alloy wheels simply will not. Just as Subaru has persisted with the boxer engine layout and its all-wheel-drive platform for so long, neither will it be allowing the soft-roader to become any softer.

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Inside, the Subaru is laid out in a conventional way apart from the 11.5-inch central screen that is mounted portrait rather than landscape. It’s nice to see there are at least some hard buttons for commonly used functions and the usual slew of USB charging points and cup-holders are present and accounted for.

The company says the front seats have been made more comfortable and even a short stint at the helm bears this out. Thankfully, the rear seat is roomy in every direction, too, with plenty of foot room and a cabin wide enough for actual rear-seat adults.

If this is all sounding like a triumph of considered moderation over risky flamboyance, so be it. But long after you’ve forgotten about the lack of fire-breathing pace or trendy tech, you’ll still be appreciating the grown-up result this $46,490 car represents.

That the Forester survived our first edit when so many of its mid-sized SUV brethren did not, proves the point that, even in a stove-hot market segment, sometimes, a generous serve of something competent and familiar is all you really want.

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Specs

One of my favourite terms that we use a lot in testing is a simple one. “It’s the answer to a question nobody asked.”

The judging team visited that phrase more than once during COTY, and more than once when dissecting the merits of a four-wheeled conveyance devoid of a back window. It is, without doubt, one of the Polestar 4’s most glaring deficiencies. It doesn’t work in theory and it doesn’t work in practice.

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On the plus side, the Polestar 4 looks and feels well-made, and delivers premium cabin ambience, rough road thumps aside. On the move broadly, and on smoother surfaces, it’s a serene driving experience. The interior isn’t just thoughtfully appointed, it’s beautifully executed and stretches well beyond Tesla’s austerity. Front and second row space is a highlight for family buyers, along with a hefty 526L/1536L luggage capacity, and Polestar 4’s energy usage is solid in the real world if a little greedier than the standard-setting Tesla Model Y.

As tested though, the Long Range Single motor crests $90,000, with options getting very pricey, very quickly. The judges agreed that too many crucial functions require navigation through the central infotainment touchscreen, and that the rear window delete is a case of the design team running roughshod over engineering. If you spend a lot of time on rutted rural roads, the firm ride will also grate, but around town it will behave well.

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Like all electric cars, the Polestar 4 feels fast, the 7.1-second run to 100km/h backing that up, even if this single motor model is the slower of the two. Interestingly, Polestar has accounted for the pace with quality Pirelli P Zero rubber, a performance-oriented choice, without question. The 100kWh battery is hefty, and the single motor makes an easy 200kW and 343Nm. The kerb weight of 2230kg means it’s a portly vehicle to fire through a ride and handling course, and the weight is never far from the mind of the person holding the steering wheel.

Electric vehicles are heading rapidly toward a fork in the road. Do manufacturers continue to try to innovate and reshape the rule book in the way that Polestar has done by deleting the rear window? Or do they deliver on the time-honoured tradition of the motor car? That is, give ’em what they want. If Polestar had delivered a car that was more conventional, for example, the judges thought that it would go into battle with more firepower in its armoury.

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While there’s a lot to like about the Polestar 4, then – both on paper and in the metal – this year’s field is a tough one, and Polestar’s attempt to rewrite the rules for the segment, haven’t quite hit the mark. Still an excellent vehicle both in the pure sense and as an EV, it’s not as
competent as the best in the field for this year’s award.

Specs

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On paper, the Nissan Ariya was looking good.

It ticked the first, most important box for any new EV, with a claimed range just over 500 kilometres. The starting price of $55,840 was not high and not low, but not out of step with rivals arriving from outside China. Also, it’s not just another big-box SUV, as Nissan has injected some angles and originality in its exterior design. Inside, there was plenty of space and an airy look and feel.

Going back to basics, the Ariya – a name variously attributed as ‘noble’ and ‘celebration’ – is a mid-sized SUV when most Australian families are shopping for something in that space and a growing number are being converted by EV contenders from brands as diverse as MG and MINI, Kia and Hyundai, and – inevitably – Tesla.

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Why, then, is it struggling so miserably for sales in Australia? Just 47 were registered in September, a total easily eclipsed by the vastly underwhelming Leapmotor C10 with 71. Digging into the background on the Ariya began to provide answers.

It is Nissan’s second fully battery-electric contender, after the Leaf, but it was unveiled as a concept car in Tokyo nearly six years before reaching Australia. That is literally a generational gap when Chinese brands are bounding ahead, handing a massive advantage to its rivals.

Nissan Australia claimed the delay was a conscious decision to set its timing to match the introduction of the Federal Government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, with its requirement for more EVs to offset its diesel and petrol combustion contenders. But, really…

The Leaf has never done much in Australia, even in its second generation, so the package for the Ariya is a smarter move. There are single and dual-motor power packs, 63 or 87kWh batteries, with either front or all-wheel drive, and the COTY contender was the Advance+ model.

The Advance+ sits in the sweet spot and means $63,840, 178kW/300Nm, front-wheel drive and a 0-100 time of 8.1 seconds.

A walk-around on the Ariya showed its size and heft, good exterior finishing, and the vast leap forward from the Leaf. Inside, there was lots of space, but now there were questions. There is hard plastic, the design is overly frugal, the seats are roomy but not supportive, and the dashboard layout and display screens are just ‘me too’ in the class. There was a sliding centre console, with a gimmicky electric motor, but otherwise nothing special on the USB or storage front.

“It looks cheap,” opined Peter Robinson.

“Nothing much to see here,” said David Morley.

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In the driving, the Nissan was underwhelming. For an EV, the acceleration was ordinary. Nissan touts its one-pedal driving mode, with strong regeneration to boost the battery and improve slowing without the brakes, but that’s not unique.

The steering was light and floppy, with response which is probably just fine on a California freeway but gave no real connection to the road.

At Lang Lang, it had to be eased into corners and squeezed under braking. It rocked and rolled. Bounced, too. The damping was soft and floppy, especially on the rolling waves set to highlight such flaws.
Road noise? More than other EVs in the COTY field. In the end, no-one came to save the Ariya when it was the first car dropped from COTY.

“Where was this car four years ago?” asked Robinson.

“Where was this car 10 years ago?” replied Morley.

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Specs

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Mazda’s showroom is awash with SUVs – there’s your ‘thanks for the tip, scoop’ moment for 2025-26 Wheels Car of the Year. Within the CX-60 range as tested for COTY, there are three drivetrains, petrol or diesel, and five trim grades available. And that’s one model in amongst many.

At the time of testing, the price spread started from $47,990 drive away, scaling up to $74,192 drive
away. The GT grade we included was priced at $67,990 drive away. Mazda is a brand that carries the heavy burden of multiple COTY successes, dating back to 1980 with the 323 – along with the expectations of a judging panel keen to assess whether any new Mazda delivers on the premium, sporty feel we expect (demand) from the Japanese manufacturer.

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CX-60 GT enters the fray this year, then, more forcibly armed than it might have been. Both more affordable and more expensive variants are available, but the GT sits in the sweet spot near the middle of the range. Cabin design and execution remain a Mazda standout and while everyone’s definition of luxury differs, the Mazda cabin is a lovely place to be. Visibility, the sense of light and space, the quality of the controls, and how easy those controls are to locate and use are all highlights of the CX-60’s DNA.

The judges unanimously agreed that the eight-speed multi-clutch automatic lacked the last 10 per cent in refinement, and the mild-hybrid system wasn’t as smooth as it could be either. We also noted road noise intrusion into the cabin on coarse-chip surfaces at highway speed. However, there is no doubt Mazda has taken on feedback, and softened up the suspension system to deliver improved ride quality on rough surfaces, as well as making the price more attractive to buyers in a hugely competitive segment. The CX-60 – even with road noise noted – is also quieter than previous Mazdas, meaning Mazda has undertaken to engineer cabin insulation into the mix.

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The judges loved the smooth response of the 3.3-litre inline six-cylinder engine, which generates 209kW and 450Nm, while using a claimed 7.4L/100km. “A timely reminder of how great an inline six can be,” uttered by more than one judge during the week.

The judges also noted that Mazda faces a tough task anytime it releases a new vehicle – traditionalists wanting it to ‘feel’ like a Mazda whether it’s hybrid or electric, and therefore heavier than it might otherwise be.

Ultimately, the Mazda CX-60 – competent as it is – doesn’t reset the bar in a segment that is hugely competitive across all price points and specification grades. The judges enjoyed driving the CX-60, and all plumped for the quality of the cabin, the useful space on offer, and the choice of materials. Progress to the pointy end of Car of the Year is no easy task though, and the Mazda CX-60 fell short this year.

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Specs

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a bona fide time machine. Climb inside, press the start button. When the engine is stone cold, you’ll sense a small delay as the glow plugs warm the internals sufficiently to convince high-pressure diesel to explode under nothing more provocative than mechanical compression. And within seconds, you’ll be transported back to a time when NVH stood for Not Very Happy.

Pull the shifter into D, tip in some throttle and prepare for the aural and tactile onslaught of a truly
old-school diesel experience. There’s vibration and there’s noise. Haul on to the main road and feed it some more throttle. Now you notice that while there’s a distinct sense of relentlessness about the acceleration, relentless is not another word for enthusiastic. Try dogged, and even that word has a limit of about 3500rpm, at which point, the 2.2-litre four-banger is about done.

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In the world of marine comparisons, if a Mazda MX-5 is a small ski-boat, an Audi RS6 wagon is a cabin-cruiser and a Yaris GR is a jet-ski, the Isuzu is an ice-breaker. And, possibly in this company, a deal-breaker.

The eight-speed automatic does its best to iron out the peaks and troughs of the turbo-motor’s delivery, but there’s no hiding the bronze-age DNA lineage (relatively speaking) of the 3.0-litre engine, considered to be one of the better modern common-rail diesel engines. Well, as they apply to dual-cab utes, anyway.

And that’s the key to understanding the MU-X. Not to mention its $62,990 plus on-roads sticker. Strip away the marketing and what you’re left with is an Isuzu D-Max dual-cab with a station-wagon rear section instead of the brickie’s or sparky’s canopy. True, Isuzu has gone to the trouble of re-engineering the box-of-hammers leaf-sprung, live rear axle to produce a coil-sprung independent set-up. But painting a shipping container bright red does not make it a Ferrari. Dig?

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So, you’re driving a truck, okay? If you can live with the unsprung mass and tall ride height, and the spring rates that go with that, and you don’t mind slow steering, a big climb up inside, the noise and the lazy dynamics, then there is one thing the MU-X offers that nothing else in the COTY field can. And that is being the direct descendant of a 4WD with the unquestioned ability to tackle pretty much any off-road journey you can name. Simpson Desert? No problems. Cape York? Victorian potholes? No dramas whatsoever. The Isuzu will gobble it up and tip you out at the other end like nothing happened.

Which brings us to the reality of all this. If you do wish to strike out and see the bits of Australia that only a capable off-road four-wheel-drive can take you, then the Isuzu is a contender for your dollars. The question is whether Aussie buyers will adopt the 2.2L as hungrily as they did the 3.0L?

But, frankly, there are other makes and models that offer the same rock-hopping abilities without quite the same compromises.

Plenty others will likewise reveal this nation’s heartland but will do so with more refinement and sophistication. You don’t necessarily need a time machine to visit history.

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Specs

It was early in 2024 when the bait came through the interweb. Hyundai wanted to know if I’d like to fly to Dubbo in central NSW to sample a top-secret prototype of what could become a volume selling model. In this game,that’s like asking a politician if they’d like to tour the factory where lies are planted as seedlings and grown into policies.

We all know that Hyundai uses local suspension engineers to get things right, but less well known is that the brand in general likes testing prototypes down under. Our time zone is closer to South Korea’s than Death Valley’s, for instance, and landing secret cars here in large boxes is both cheaper and easier. Plus we have plenty of temperature extremes and enough red dust to test any engineer’s skills at keeping the stuff out of interiors and mechanical bits.

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In any case, the prototype in question was a city-bound compact with an all-electric driveline. Sound
familiar? Yep, the Inster.

At the time, the secret-squirrel chat was that the Inster might hit the Aussie market at under $40,000. Which, of course, it did in entry-level form. Fast forward about 14 months and the Inster is on sale in Australia at $39,000 for the base-model and $42,500 (plus ORC) for the extended range model here. So, mission accomplished then? Well, sort of.

The catch is that GWM had been slicing $2000 chunks out of its Ora franchise, finally making the funky little EV $36,000 driveaway. Oh, and the MG ZS EV had also lobbed into the mix at $35,000 after similarly savage discounting. Then there’s the BYD Dolphin Essential at sub-$30K. Oh dear. Which is where we find ourselves right now, with the Inster retaining all the charm and technical verve it ever had, but a price-tag that is scaring the horses.

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But you can’t deny the Inster is cute. It has a kind of Staffy-puppy enthusiasm even in the way it sits when parked. Okay, it might look a bit Fisher-Price to grown-ups, but the K-Pop generation couldn’t care less. Inside, the funkiness continues with the houndstooth and off-white interior looking great now, but who knows for how long.

A single electric motor drives the front wheels and power comes from a 49kWh lithium-ion battery under the floor. Driving through a single-speed transmission, the Inster makes do with 84.5kW of power and 147Nm of torque to hustle its 1400-odd kilograms. Understandably, then, performance is leisurely rather than frantic, and there’s always the feeling that a few more kiloWatts under your clog would be a nice thing to have.

But the Inster’s real charm is in the way it shreds. In fact, this is a properly competent platform which is also nicely damped and has an especially talkative front end, something that has characterised tiny Hyundais and Kias for a while now. Again, though, if it were just a tad speedier…

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This variant of the Inster has the larger battery which extends range to a claimed 360km. Three-twenty will be closer to the truth. Charging is easily achieved overnight on a household wall-box (call it seven hours from 10 to 100 per cent charged) and the wee Hyundai can also cope with up to 120kW on a DC fast-charger. At which point you’re looking at going from 10 to 80 per cent charged in 20 minutes.

In the end, despite Peter Robinson’s description of it as “part suburban runabout and part small SUV… delivering a civilised drive at a price” the Inster did not offer enough to proceed beyond round one.

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Specs

Anonymity can be a good thing, provided it’s your choice. But when anonymity is thrust upon one, making up the numbers is not always where you want to be.

The art of the wallflower is hardly confined to the GWM Haval H6, but it remains that, as was obvious when all the SUVs were parked in one spot during our COTY test laps and a badge check was needed to ID it. For a bloke who, as a kid, could correctly identify pretty much any make or model from a kilometre away, this is an admission of personal failure. But also a realisation that pragmatic packaging will sometimes triumph over distinctive design.

And when it comes to pragmatism, the Haval H6 takes some beating. It taps into the conventional in terms of its layout and dimensions, and with an overall length of 4.7m, and an overall width of almost 1.9m, it plops contentedly into the family-SUV jelly mould.

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Inside, the Haval offers a classy – but not flashy – presentation that looks more expensive than it actually is. Okay, it might be a bit derivative (the speaker grilles look very Benz-ish to us) and it’s dominated by the twin info-screens, meaning the hard buttons are restricted to a single strip across the centre-stack and the spokes of the tiller.

The Haval finally starts to drag some daylight between itself and the rest of the pack when it comes to driveline heft. True, it uses what has apparently become the PHEV SUV industry standard in a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine, but then throws in a pair of electric motors and a 19.1kWh battery-pack for a pure electric range of a claimed 100km.

Significantly, it also features a Tesla-busting output of 268kW of power and 760Nm of torque when fully tapped out. And yet it manages to record an official fuel consumption number of 1.1 litres per 100km. No, it will never achieve this on Planet Earth, but it suggests the H6 will be at least as frugal as its PHEV buddies. Figure on around 5 litres per 100km or maybe even less in real world running.

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Of course, that’s predicated on the H6 being driven in a conventional way which, given the performance on tap, is no guarantee. Yep, this thing can really gallop, and it’s here where the H6 really, truly starts to distance itself from the pack and justify its $50,990 (drive-away) sticker.

Despite a decidedly portly weighbridge ticket of near enough to 1900kg (really?), Tubby can get to 100km/h from rest in a blink under five seconds. And because the computer controls when the electric motors and turbo-petrol chime in and by how much, the torque curve is extremely flat. In fact, the Newton-metres have been manipulated to such a degree that the H6 feels like it accelerates harder between 120 and 160km/h than it does from 80 to 120km/h. It’s one hell of a party trick for a family SUV.

Much has been made of the local input into the chassis and steering of the H6, and while it’s clearly better than a lot of its Chinese-made counterparts, there’s still no getting around physics. The sophisticated Hi4 all-wheel-drive system helps, though, delivering torque to either axle anywhere from 0 to 100 per cent front to rear and vice-versa.

But the tall ride height, kerb mass and heavy wheels and tyres equal firm suspension. Even though the local development team has done its best to tidy up the damping and steering feedback, the Haval can still feel a bit awkward at times.

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The initial ride, for instance, still feels pretty firm to us and despite the all-wheel-drive grip, the system feels a bit reactive and it can sometimes be difficult to get the H6 to turn in.

Beyond the impressive stomp, the other selling point here is the standard equipment. The interior is tech-laden, with details like a ventilated wireless phone-charging pad and, in this specification, a huge panoramic sunroof, head-up display, heated and ventilated front seats with memory function and even a heated steering wheel.

Throw in GWM’s seven-year/unlimited km warranty and you’re dealing with a pretty complete package that offers something the vast majority doesn’t – that intense acceleration experience. It’s a solid bet, however, that the first time that is demonstrated without a warning will be the last time. Leaving, then, the peanut-brittle ride as the characteristic you’ll remember.

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Specs

Remember those crazy t-shirts from Japan in the 1980s? The ones that featured Japanese-English translations so incongruous they were worth the admission for that alone. ‘Super-Bomp Explorage Crew’ was, I think, my favourite.

Don’t know about you, but I’m getting a similar vibe from the Chery Tiggo 7. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe the Chinese-made SUV really is a ‘Super Hybrid Urban’.

I’m only making (labouring) this point because there are several other reasons to consider the Tiggo 7 in this form. Those start with the slash-and-burn pricing of $39,990 drive-away. At that price-point, you might not be expecting a plug-in hybrid driveline, but the Tiggo 7 has one. Nor might you anticipate 18-inch alloys (which, to be honest look more like plastic hub-caps to these eyes), wireless Apple Carplay and Android Auto, keyless entry and start, dual 12.3-inch info screens, a powered driver’s seat and faux leather. Yet they’re all included within that sub-40-grand ask.

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So is a thing called sit-to-start which does away with a starter button (and convention) and will start the car once you’re seated, with a foot on the brake, a gear selected and your seat-belt fastened. The minimum-wage stiffs who move cars around dealership lots are going to hate that one.

You can spend more on the Ultimate specification to include a panoramic sunroof, heated and ventilated front chairs, ambient lighting and a 360-degree camera, but that adds $4000, suddenly ratcheting the price into tougher, sharkier territory. And doesn’t sub-40-grand-family-plug-in-hybrid have such a nice ring to it, at a time when an avo-coffee and a smashed latte will probably empty your wallet?

Powering the Tiggo 7 is a petrol engine that is rapidly becoming the default hybrid solution; a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol four-cylinder. It makes 105kW of power and is teamed with a 150kW electric motor. Strangely, nobody seems to know the actual combined power and torque outputs when both powerplants are humming along together, but it’s never as simple as 105 plus 150 equals 255kW (it’s almost always less).

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Regardless, performance is more than adequate for such a family-oriented piece of work, and the single-speed hybrid transmission keeps it simple. Smooth running is the name of the game even when the Tiggo is using its petrol engine, and the small capacity turbo-motor is as sweet as any of them in 2025. The driver can force the car into electric only mode, or simply select Auto mode and allow the car to decide for itself how it gets down the road. Stick to all-electric running, and the people at Chery claim a 90km range before the petrol engine will be called into play.

Charging the 18.4kW battery can be achieved at home on a household socket or a commercial fast DC charger. Well, the first 40kW of its capacity, anyway, at which point the battery will go from 30 per cent charged to 80 per cent in around 20 minutes.

In any case, recent research suggests that a lot of people with plug-in hybrids don’t charge them anyway. They simply rely on the efficiencies of normal hybrid running and leave it at that. The official test figure of 1.4L per 100km has Brothers Grimm written all over it, but real-world experience suggests that a mix of urban and highway running will still net an overall figure of less than 5L per 100km.

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What’s not so hot is the Tiggo’s combination of ride, handling and steering. The latter can seem a little crumbly with a manufactured feel introducing a few little squirms and wriggles you’d swear shouldn’t be there. And that SUV combination of ride height and kerb mass (almost 1800kg) means the springs are firmer than you may have been expecting. For all that, however, there’s not the degree of body-roll control expected from a ride as firm as this one.

Anyway, long after you’ve tired of calculating the crazy-good fuel economy, that busy ride will remind that you spent 40-grand and not 60.

Specs