► We drive Geely Auto’s first car for Europe
► Generous equipment, bland to drive
► Starts at under £32k
Does that name ring a bell? It may well do, as Geely has had its fingers in many automotive pies over the years. Now, though, it’s launching a range of cars branded under its own name in the UK and Europe and its first – this new EX5 SUV – is priced to give all its competition a black eye.
At a glance
Pros: Generous equipment; good interior quality and rear space; quiet
Cons: Busy ride; fiddly infotainment; range feels below average for the class
What’s new?
You may have already head of Geely Holding Group. In a European context, the Geely Group has largely lurked in the corporate shadows; it’s owned Volvo and its subsidiary Polestar for years, has a joint venture with Mercedes for the new-age Smart brand, and owns the seemingly-always-on-the-brink Lotus. Now the group is launching cars under the Geely Auto brand. It’s already done so for years in China, and now Europe is in its sights with this new EX5.
The EX5 is about as shrewd a car to start with as the brand launches in Europe; it’s a five-seat family SUV entering a part of the market that’s all about massive volumes… albeit with plenty of competition. From the off, it’s perhaps not a great start for the EX5; aside from an interesting ‘jade’ colour, it’s pretty anonymous to look at. That said, Geely is convinced it’s arriving to the segment with some of the most aggressive pricing in its class.
The EX5 is the first of four Geely Auto models to launch in Europe within the next two years, as the brand will provide offerings in the hottest and most competitive segments – whether it be with an EV or a plug-in hybrid.
What are the specs?
For the EX5, Geely Auto is launching with just one powertrain specification. It comprises a 60.2kWh battery pack and a single 215bhp electric motor driving the front wheels, good for a perfectly decent 6.9sec 0-62mph time and a top speed of 109mph.
As for range and charging, Geely claims a maximum 267-mile range (for the base spec; upper trims drop slightly to 258 and then 255 miles), which is a little below average for the kind of cars the EX5 is going after. The EX5 has an 11kW AC charger and can take up to 160kW DC charging.
There may be no choice in powertrain, but Geely offers SE, Pro and Max specifications (which makes it sound like Geely’s selling iPhones…). Geely’s certainly offering a lot for the money – even by the standards we’ve expected from Chinese car makers, as a base SE is priced at £31,990. For that, you get 18-inch alloys, a 360-degree camera system, a large central display and instrument cluster, keyless entry and start, wireless Apple CarPlay (with wireless Android Auto on the way via an OTA update), a heated steering wheel and loads of standard safety kit.
Pro merely adds 19-inch wheels and more interior colours – and therefore doesn’t really seem that worth it for its £33,990 price.
Max, the top spec here, is armed to the teeth with luxuries and clocks in at £36,990. A head-up display, 16-speaker ‘premium’ audio system from FlyMe (nope, never heard of it either) with headrest speakers, powered tailgate, massaging and ventilated front seats and a passenger seat with a leg rest for ultimate reclining. We’ve tested this version here.
And that’s before you get to what else Geely’s offering. At the time of writing, it’s tacking on a grant that shaves even more money off the list price and is throwing in either a subsidised Andersen wallbox charger or £500 of public charging via Octopus.
What’s it like to drive?
There’s no start button, or even a bong to say the car’s awake when you get in; just get your foot on the brake, shift it into D via the column stalk and you’re on your way.
Let’s start with the positives. The EX5’s steering has some good weight to it, and feels direct. We’d stick to keeping the rack in its comfort setting, though; the steering setup in sport is just a little too heavy for our liking. Still, though, it’s better than the unpredictable and sloppy steering found on the Jaecoo 7.
It’s also very quiet – even by electric car standards – with a lack of thudding from the suspension and reasonably damped tyre noise.
There’s a perfectly good amount of power. Is it Plaid fast? Of course not, but there’s enough for the EX5 to get out of its own way and it’s sweetly modulated. The drive modes don’t seem to change much, though, and having to dig through the menus to change the regen when some steering wheel paddles will have done the job feels like a misstep.
Geely says the damping, springs and anti-roll bars have been finely tuned for the UK-specific models given our lumpy roads and more, er… enthusiastic driving style. But the result is quite a busy and fidgety setup, jittering over road surfaces a little too much for our liking. It’s damped better than a Jaecoo 7, but there’s a lot of fuss and feedback on harsh tarmac that some of the EX5’s competition will likely be able to tune out better. There’s also a little bit more roll in the corners than we’d like, too.
What’s the interior like?
When you first get in, it all feels quite plush. The general interior design is quite clean, with soft materials dotted around and a general feeling of solidity; no creaks anywhere or any cheap-feeling materials.
That is where things start to fall apart, though. The seats are comfortable and padded enough, but there’s a slight lack of reach adjustment in the weirdly-shaped steering wheel to be properly comfortable for the taller among us.
And then we get to the infotainment setup. As you can tell from the pictures, there are few buttons, but Geely has at least made an effort to make some of them perform multiple duties. The big (slightly plasticky-feeling) click wheel in the centre controls volume and can be allowed to control one other function (like fan speed or temperature), while the steering wheel buttons are confusing to operate.
The most difficult is the infotainment screen itself. Like many cars that rely on the screen so heavily, it’s a bright and glossy display itself but the menu navigation is difficult to master with many functions in sub-menus that don’t seem to match with where you’d logically find them. Customising driver aids and warnings takes time every journey, and even switching on the heated seats or massaging function takes several taps of the screen rather than the usual single press of a button.
Some Brownie points are clawed back when it comes to space, though. Tall adults can sit behind fellow tall adults in the back perfectly well with good legroom and enough headroom for Abraham Lincoln wearing his loftiest of stovepipes – even in the Max spec with its panoramic glass roof. Interior storage is good, too, with big door bins and centre console storage. There’s also a drawer under the rear seat bench for storing other bits – great if you’re running an international smuggling operation.
The boot – above the false floor, at least – is rather meagre at around 300 litres. But Geely includes the enormous under-floor area in its measurement, raising the total volume with the seats up to 461 litres.
Before you buy
We’d arguably say your two choices are to keep the EX5 super cheap with a good amount of equipment on the base-spec SE model, or pay not that much more in reality for the Max version – internally predicted to be Geely’s bestseller. £37k all in is a good amount of money in isolation, given the huge amount of kit on board.
Your closest rivals to the EX5 are naturally cars like the Skoda Enyaq, Toyota bZ4X and even ones like a base-spec Tesla Model Y and BYD’s Atto 3 to name but a few. All of these cars have their merits over the Geely; the Enyaq has a much larger boot and even more rear space, the bZ4X can now go further on a charge, the Model Y still has Tesla’s Joker card of the seamless Supercharger network behind it and the BYD offers similar kit but a bit more range than the EX5. Even so, Geely undercuts all of them on price.
Verdict: Geely EX5
A reasonable first effort from Geely Auto, leaning heavily on its low price and generous equipment to tempt you over more than how it drives or looks. The fact it undercuts almost all of its competition means you can forgive its very average range and power to a degree, and it offers plenty of space.