Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid

Chery are parent company to Omoda & Jaecoo so inevitably they wanted a piece of the UK car market & have launched their own Chery brand, with the Tiggo 7, Tiggo 8 & Tiggo 9 the first to break cover. The good news for company car drivers is there’s a plug-in Tiggo 7 which arrived for us to test in February.

Tell me more

The Tiggo 7 is a Qashqai sized SUV offering five-seat practicality & a tempting price tag. It shares it’s platform with the Omoda 7 & Jaecoo 7 but is the cheaper alternative.

Model choice

Two versions petrol or plug-in hybrid, the latter being the more tax friendly with 9% BIK.

Engines & prices

The Tiggo 7 costs £24,995 for the 145bhp turbocharged 1.6-litre pure-petrol version, or in fleet-friendly PHEV format, the Super Hybrid from £29,995, making it the cheapest plug-in hybrid car you can buy in the UK.

Trims

Entry-level Aspire comes with twin 12.3-inch screens, Apple CarPlay & Android Auto connectivity, LED lights front & rear, a six-way powered driver’s seat, dual-zone automatic air-conditioning & a rear-view camera. Step up to Summit & you’ll add a dual-panoramic sunroof, an upgraded Sony sound system, a four-way powered front passenger seat, a power boot lid, heated & ventilated front seats & an all-around camera. For an extra £3,000 you can move up to the Summit trim.

Outside

A chrome-plated diamond design  grille & LED & IQ lights adorn the front, with a kinked rear quarter window making the side more interesting . An on-trend full-width a rear LED light band sits beneath the CHERY name with a roof spoiler finishing the hatchback off at the rear.

Interior

Infotainment

On-screen menus are intuitive although we never quite worked out how to exit CarPlay for the Home Screen relying instead on the climate short cut buttons for example,  to alter the temperature. The climate screen then takes approximately 10 seconds to return to CarPlay & in our case Waze which was a touch frustrating. Better is that the touchscreen merges seamlessly with the driver info-display screen which clearly illustrates your speed, driving range, EV/battery range & revs.

Performance

The Tiggo 7 has a 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine & a seven-speed automatic transmission, whilst the Super Hybrid gets a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine & a 201bhp electric motor, fed by a 21kWh battery which uses a three-speed automatic gearbox.

Range & charging the Super Hybrid

The Super Hybrid’s claimed electric only range is 56 miles. Cleverly when you set off in EV mode which I always did, the car will tell you when the electric range is low & will suggest you switch to HEV mode. As far as charging goes it comes with a 40kW charging speed, so a 30-80% top-up on fast charger will take just 30 minutes. Plug in at home on a 7.4kWh charger like our own Rolec Evo & a full charge will take under 3 hours. V2L is also included.

Performance 

Model                 Power    0-62mph       Top speed

Chery Tiggo 7        145bhp  9.4 seconds      112mph
Chery Tiggo 7 SH  204bhp  8.5 seconds    112mph

Economy & C02’s

Chery Tiggo 7 petrol               42.2mpg 159g/km
Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid  343mpg   23g/km

Cabin space & practicality

As with the Omoda & Jaecoo range in general, you sit quite high up in the Tiggo 7 enabling an excellent all-around view. The drivers seats adjusts electrically & the 5.5 hours we spent one day saw our temperamental back survive unscathed, so it’s comfortable too.

We utilised the large front door pockets & under armrest storage area which with the glove box, are of a good size. You also get a hidden storage area beneath the centre binnacle where the 12v socket is hidden, twin centre cup holders & an A & C USB input.

In the rear the seats are quite upright & bench-like but there’s plenty of legroom  thanks to the flat floor with the sunroof not eating into the very good headroom. Small-ish rear door pockets, a fold down armrest with two cup holders, tiny rear seat sleeves & a single USB complete the picture.

Boot space

The petrol Tiggo 7’s boot is competitive at 565 litres, but you only get 484 litres in the plug-in version with the60:40 rear bench folded this increases to 1,386 litres in the Super Hybrid.. There aren’t any other boot compartments nor any netting to keep things in place, but there is a small space beneath the boot floor to squeeze your charging cable into.

Warranty

All models come with CHERY’s comprehensive 7-year/100,000-mile warranty, whichever comes first, with the Super Hybrid also coming with an 8-year/100,000-mile warranty on the battery. All models include free RAC roadside assistance for the first year which then renews with every dealer service in line with the Chery 7-year warranty.

Safety

Both versions come with autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, rear cross-traffic braking, lane departure warning & blind spot monitoring. Summit doesn’t add any extra safety technology,  but does include a 540-degree exterior camera.

We drove to an Omoda event & left all of the safety features turned on to see ho these were. Driver Attentiion Warning was by far the most annoying, beeping when I glanced left  to use the touchscreen or put my right hand at 1-o’clock on the steering which I’ve a tendency to do on the motorway .Lane Keeping & Departure illustrated some steering pull when we didn’t indicate to come back in after any overtaking manoeuvre, otherwise we’re pleased to say that it was no where near as intrusive as we had feared.

Driving on the motorway

Fom our front door to Waddesdon Manor near Aylesbury we drove 135 miles on the motorway network. As this is the cheapest Chery brand we weren’t expecting too much, but the Tiggo 7 surprised us in a good way. You hit a 60mph dual carriageway within 1 mile of where we live so I activated cruise control, sat back & that was pretty much it until I reached Bicester.

The Tiggo 7 was a great companion, the wireless CarPlay allowed me to use Waze & podcasts whilst the drivers display kept me informed of the cars range & my speed. Plenty of glass coupled to the high driving position gave me a great all-around view with only the Driver Attention Warning  causing me any grief – I disabled this for the return journey.

Any negatives ? The cabin gets quite noisy at 70mph & I’ve already mentioned the slowness of the screen to return to the map when you adjust the temperature, but that really is it.

Driving modes

I played around with the central dial toggling between Eco, Normal & Sport driving modes, but there really isn’t a discernible difference.  Selecting Eco on the motorway was absolutely fine.

We did notice that the electric motor can get a touch noisy as it strains to accelerate from 50-70mph, but it settles down quickly & is no better nor worse than plenty of other hybrids in that respect.. This isn’t a fast car but the 8.5 second run to 62mph is plenty quick enough for most driving scenarios with the brakes proving more than adequate.

Urban driving

The Tiggo 7 was a decent companion for short trips as well. The car starts itself when you push the brake & off you go in electric mode. Inside the cabin it’s quiet with the Tiggo 7 even handling poor tarmac well thanks to soft suspension & certainly better than many. A small 11m turning circle plus the all-around camera on the Summit model, made parking simple. As for driving dynamics, this is a car built for comfort & practicality & as an upright SUV, it ticks those boxes & is not going to excite you like pretty much al other SUV’s.

Pros

Plug-in BIK of 9% is a good start. Plenty of room on board for five. The on board tech & safety works well. It features comfortable seats. A 600 mile driving range is more good news & the price is a major win.

Cons

Not exciting to drive. Cabin & engine can get noisy at higher speeds. Driver Attention Warning can be very annoying so we’d suggest that you turn this off. PHEV’s boot is smaller than the petrol version.

Verdict

The Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid is another Chinese car that delivers plenty of what customers want at an amazingly low price. We much preferred it to the more expensive Jaecoo 7 & in the case of the BYD 5 DM-i which comes with an almost identical electric range, but costs £2000 more, it’s better value as well.

It does though come with some faults & to be fair to Chery, these are commonplace across the sector. Namely, as an electric SUV, it’s pretty un-engaging to drive. Some on-board safety features can be annoying so you’ll need to disable these every time you re- start the car. And overall, too much is controlled via the touchscreen. In effect that’s a template for  most new cars & not just the Tiggo.

Having said al that & judging by Jaecoo 7 sales in 2025, none of these are putting people off & if you’re a company car driver who can’t quite go full-electric, the Tiggo 7 SH with it’s 600 mile range, near 60mpg & 9% BIK will tick most of your boxes.

Tiggo 7 Super-Hybrid gets a well deserved 3.25/5