Jaecoo J7 Plug-In Hybrid Review: An Unprecedented Achievement
The Jaecoo J7 PHEV’s ability to behave like an EV, a hybrid as well as an ICE car equally and competently is a game changer.
Plug-in hybrids are seen by many as being the ‘worst of both worlds’. Most past examples are heavier than a conventional ICE car, require charging unlike a series or parallel hybrid and aren't as powerful nor as refined as a pure EV.
But they do have a place in certain use cases where short distances within the city are a big part of your commute (where a PHEV in pure EV mode would excel over a hybrid), while you travel cross-country often as well thereby requiring good range. PHEVs traditionally don’t do well in either situation once its battery is depleted. Well, the Jaecoo J7 PHEV is upending this thinking.
Boasting 90 km (WLTP) of EV-only range is only a hint of what the PHEV system is able to offer. This pure EV range alone is quite impressive considering 50-70 km is about the average today. Just a few years ago, you would be lucky to hit anything close to 50 km. On our real world test, we achieved around 80 km.
Dubbed the Super Hybrid System or SHS, the J7 PHEV is able to go into four drive modes - EV, Series Hybrid, Parallel Hybrid and full ICE. At least among the current crop of PHEV offerings in Singapore, this versatility is pretty much unheard of.
Powered by a 1.5L turbo with 140 hp and 215 Nm as well as an electric motor with 201 hp and 310 Nm, you’re getting a combined 341 hp and 525 Nm. Those are pretty staggering numbers.
In EV mode, the car is quick enough for most situations and feels as responsive as you’d hope. In fact, being front-wheel driven, the J7 PHEV can cause its front wheels to spin if you’re liberal with the throttle. 0-100 km/h is dispatched in 8.5 seconds. This veracity is despite the weight penalty of lugging the ICE engine around. The petrol engine would do its level best not to kick in, even with the accelerator pedal pinned to the floor. I find this quite remarkable as at maximum acceleration, most PHEVs would wave the white flag and start to burn fossil fuel.
The upshot of this is that even with a depleted battery, the car runs as efficiently as a conventional hybrid. The car will switch out of EV mode into one of its other three drive modes once the battery hits around the 15% mark, as we observed during our drive.
At this point you would hear the petrol engine kick in, although it does it in a very quiet way, minding its own business. It’s as seamless and fuss-free as any other hybrid. The remarkable thing is that the responsiveness of the car remains very impressive. It doesn’t bog down into a lethargic slouch as you might expect with an exhausted battery. The CVT gearbox also does a great job keeping things smooth, with none of the rubber band feel that plagues many of its type.
The transition between series hybrid and parallel hybrid modes is hard to discern, but it is possible. In essence, if the throttle responds directly to engine RPM, it’s running as a parallel hybrid. If the engine hums in the background without any direct link to your throttle input, it’s in series hybrid mode. Even in either of the hybrid modes with a depleted battery, I was achieving around 17-18 km/l.
The last mode is ICE mode which only kicks in if the car runs above approximately 80 km/h. At this speed, the engine noise is drowned out by the wind noise so it makes sense to use it. It’s also very efficient when running just to keep the car running at constant highway speeds.
This whole setup basically allows the J7 PHEV to be many cars in one with as little compromise as possible. The fact that it can run as efficiently as a conventional hybrid with low charge essentially makes the latter quite irrelevant. This also means that one can easily own the J7 PHEV without regular access to a charging station without degrading the quality of the drive by much, if at all. And get this, proving that the SHS actually works wonders, the car achieved 1,427 km with a full tank and battery charge on a recent efficiency challenge - this is even more than the claimed 1,200 km or so figure.
There is more good news apart from the SHS drivetrain too. The design of the car is really attractive inside and out, with more than a whisper of reference to the Land Rover Evoque. To me, that’s no bad thing to learn from the best out there. There is enough originality though to let the J7 stand on its own feet.
Material and build quality are also great, with soft touch materials on the most visible parts of the cabin, as well as subtle touches such as integrated flashing safety lights on the rear doors when there’s an incoming car behind. I’m a fan of the responsiveness and UX of the touchscreen too, although I’d have preferred to be able to set my fuel consumption figure by trip rather than just the last 50 km.
The J7 PHEV is generous with its cabin space, with a flat rear floor giving passengers a good amount of legroom. There’s 500 litres of boot space, or 1,265 litres with the seats folded down. There are a few luxury features in the J7 PHEV that elevates the whole experience, like the Sony sound system, head-up display, a 540-degree panoramic camera, front electric and ventilated seats.
With Macpherson struts up front and multi-links at the rear, the J7 PHEV has a premium suspension setup as well. It is mostly comfortable but like many heavy SUVs, the weight does overwhelm the suspension sometimes. That said, with a kerb weight of only 1,795 kg, the J7 PHEV is fairly light among plug-in hybrids. Steering feel is vague and braking is too sensitive, but these are not deal breakers for this family-oriented SUV.
You have the option to charge up the J7 PHEV by AC (6.6 kW) or DC (40 kW), the latter being quite a rare option for PHEVs. With a suitable DC charger, you can juice up 30% to 80% in just 20 minutes. Otherwise, it would take 200 minutes with the AC charger from 0% to 100%.
There’s so much to talk about the J7 PHEV, simply because it is breaking new ground on so many levels. I think this might be the most ingenious PHEV we’ve tested, especially at this price point, at least until the BYD Sealion 6 comes to Singapore (if it comes, that is). Until then, the J7 PHEV occupies a very unique spot in the market and we wholeheartedly recommend it if you’re in the market for a relatively affordable PHEV.
Photos by James Wong
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