I’m a certified brand snob, but after a day with the Jaecoo 8 Hybrid, I’m sold

I’ll admit it upfront: I’m a bit of a badge snob. Years of testing everything from Bentleys and Aston Martins to Breitlings will do that to you.

So when Jaecoo offered me a day with its new flagship car, the Jaecoo 8 SHS-P, I wasn’t expecting to come away impressed… boy, was I wrong.

I spent the day threading it through the lanes around West Wycombe, to fully test it out. Here’s how I got on.

The hybrid system is the star of the show

Jaecoo calls it the Super Hybrid System, and while that does sound like a gimmicky marketing name, I was actually genuinely impressed.

For most of my day, the 8 behaved like a full EV. The 1.5-litre turbo petrol engine only woke up when the battery needed topping up on the move.

So, most of the time, it acts more like an electric vehicle (with a range of 83 miles) and the petrol engine is more like a generator.

That’s a genuinely impressive bit of engineering for a car at this price point. It’s smooth, it’s quiet, and it means you get the instant, silent response of electric power for the vast majority of your journey, without the range anxiety of a full EV.

It’s fast, too, with the combined output of 422bhp and 428lb ft of torque, enabling a 0-62mph in 5.8 seconds.

Chery’s claimed combined range of over 700 miles is also impressive, although I was unable to test that in just one day.

Could the suspension be better? Yes, probably. It’s not quite as silky smooth as a Range Rover or Mercedes GLS, despite what the design might have you believe. But it does a solid job of soaking up big bumps, and unless you’re a serious road tester, I doubt you’d be disappointed with the ride comfort here.

A properly usable size

The 8 sits at the sweet spot of “big enough to be genuinely practical, not so big it’s a liability down a small back lane.”

With up to seven seats (although the rear seats are very cramped, and really only for small children) and 2021 litres of boot space with the rear seats down, there’s no shortage of room.

But it never felt like I was wrestling a barge through the narrower stretches near West Wycombe, which is more than I can say for some large cars I’ve driven recently.

The value for money is genuinely gobsmacking

This is where the brand snob in me had to sit down and reconsider for a minute…

Prices start from £45,500 OTR (around $60,000) for the seven-seat Luxury trim, rising to £47,500 OTR (around $63,000) for the six-seat Executive.

For that, you’re getting dual 12.3-inch displays, a 14-speaker Sony sound system with headrest speakers, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, heated and ventilated massage seats, and up to 19 driver assistance systems as standard.

The Executive trim goes further still, adding Nappa leather and a zero-gravity front passenger seat with its own “Boss Button.”

At this price point, I think that’s unbelievable. It’s an options list you’d expect to be paying a serious premium for elsewhere.

Design and quality that punches above its price

I was braced for the interior to give the game away on cost, but again, I was pleasantly surprised.

The waterfall grille up front is a little large and gaping for my taste (apparently that’s Jaecoo owner’s favourite feature), if I’m being picky, but the rest of the exterior carries itself with genuine restraint. Nothing about it screams budget.

Inside is where I was most surprised. The soft-touch materials, the way the seats are comfortable, the general fit and finish. It all felt several rungs above what the price tag suggests (are you starting to see the trend here?)

Where it falls down – safety systems that get in the way

It’s not all good news, though. The central touchscreen is the weak link. Too many settings I’d want quick access to on a daily basis, safety systems in particular, are buried behind multiple taps and submenus.

It doesn’t look particularly polished either. The closest thing I can compare it to is early Honor and Huawei phones – they were functional, sure, by never quite as intuitive as you’d want them to be.

The bigger irritation was the driver attention monitoring. It’s overzealous to the point of being genuinely distracting (ironically). I’d be looking at the road, the car would beep at me, I’d glance down to see what was wrong, and it would tell me to keep my eyes on the road! It happened more than once, and during my short drive I couldn’t find a way to turn it off.

The verdict

Badge snobbery aside, the Jaecoo 8 SHS-P is a properly impressive flagship. The hybrid system alone justifies a test drive, and the value on offer here is hard to argue with once you’ve seen the spec sheet.

Sort out the touchscreen menus, dial back the sensitivity of the safety systems, and the Jaecoo 8 SHS-P becomes a very easy recommendation.

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