The Jaecoo J7 PHEV: Unbeatable Value or Too Good to Be True?
[Music] Hello and welcome back to the Cars of Cozy YouTube channel. My name is Chiro Diona. We’ll put a pronunciation guide to that in the in the strap below me. It’s it’s called a bottom third strap. That’s what we call it in the industry, I think. Sean, is that what it’s called? Cool. Anyway, on to the topic at hand. Welcome to the inside of the new JU J7 PHEV plug-in hybrid, which is now the second most affordable PHEV. It was the most affordable PHEV for about 8 hours. And then another Chinese PHEV arrived on the market and undercut it by 50 grand. So, yeah, the PHEV wars have hoted up. Ladies and gentlemen, having driven a bunch of PHVs recently, especially the Amoda C9 PHV and the Shark and we are in a new era. South Africa is entering a new era of motor training. Let’s get into it. But before we do, a word from our sponsors. Now remember, the Cars Kosa is so much more than just a YouTube channel and a big Facebook page and a big Tik Tok page and all the rest of it. We are South Africa’s most loved motoring platform. You’ll find your next car on cars a coz over 74,000 cars to choose from. Check out our app and check out our new plain English quick search. It’s brilliant. [Music] Right, let’s get into what’s happening underneath me here. So, PHEV, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. There’s a lot of acronyms coming out. NEV means new energy vehicle, which means which could mean battery electric or it could mean PHEV or it could mean closed loop hybrid, a self-charging hybrid. Now, in front of me through the firewall is an engine and a motor. This is just frontwheel drive, so it’s all happening in the front here. Got an electric motor with power outputs of 150 kW and 310 Nm. Now, that is a Polo GTI’s worth of power and torque, right? just from the electric motor. And because it’s electric, you get all the torque from 1 RPM. This thing jumps off the line like a frightened Mircat. It really does. And that’s because of the instant torque. Now, coupled to that is also a 1.5 L turbocharged 4 cylinder motor, which burns some petrol, and it doesn’t burn a lot of petrol. And also, I’m not actually sure it’s there. Yeah, this car feels like a battery electric vehicle. And because normally in a stop start system on an ICE car, traditional engine car, you would have a big starter motor which engages and then uses the battery, the 12vt battery to turn the engine back on. Now, some mild hybrids are a bit cleverer than that. They’ve got a motor in the transmission, which is better at turning the car on. But in this car, because you’ve got this huge electric motor which spins up the petrol motor and then it starts injecting fuel and sparking and pulling air in to create combustion. Uh in this car, you you don’t know when the engine’s on. You just don’t. If you maybe absolutely flatfoot it and just rev it out through the rev range, which you can’t even see. There’sn’t even a rev counter, then you’re going to hear a hint of internal combustion. But other than that, this for all intents and purposes, if I asked you to drive it and didn’t tell you there was a petrol motor in here, I’m 99% confident you wouldn’t know. So, why did I say we’re in a new era? Well, PHEVs in my mind are not just a stop gap between the adoption of electric vehicles, fully electric, and the adoption or the phasing out of ICE vehicles. I think this type of drivetrain, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is the future of South African motoring. And there’s a few reasons for that. One is we like road trips, right? We’re a road trip country in many, many cultures in South Africa. going home is important and that’s potentially a really long trip from the cities to uh rural areas. Now, going home in a battery electric vehicle or going on any road trip, I’ve done it. It’s not impossible, but there are some issues. So, for instance, you pull up to a garage, a petrol station. We did NISA to Cape Town. Now, just imagine that someone’s just got there. They’ve gone off for their Wimpyburg burger and they’ve plugged in. Now you arrive and yes, there’s a DC fast charger there with 150 million kW output and and I’m not trying to bring down the system. Companies like Grid Cars have done an amazing job of enabling South Africans to road trip around this country, all around this country in electric vehicles. In fact, one of the fastest charges in the country is in Mosel Bay, for instance. But there’s one of them. So you arrive at a garage and you have to wait for that owner to finish and they could be there for an hour and a half. They could be there for 4 hours. In England for instance, you pay for your time at the charger and you pay for the kilowatt to incentivize you to not stay there forever, right? So here in South Africa, we haven’t gotten there yet because it’s sort of an equal opportunity system at the moment. And here’s why I think PHEVs are the ultimate solution to South African motoring. One, brings down running costs massively. And two, and this is a big one, it completely kills range anxiety. It completely nullifies it because if you drive somewhere on the battery alone and then there’s nowhere to charge, you pull into a petrol station, that’s it. And we’ve got lots of those around South Africa. You put in fuel, takes you 10 minutes, and you’re on your way. And then you can set the car to charge mode and it’ll charge the battery. So then when you got a full battery, you can then bring your petrol consumption way down. So as I’m driving this car, we’ve been driving quite a bit today. It’s averaging 2.8 L to the 100. 2.8 for this level of performance, for this level of comfort, for this drivetrain quality to to use 2.8 L to the 100. And we haven’t even really been plugging it in. It’s been managing its own battery. If we plugged this thing in and it was full charge, full battery, which well the battery is now at 66%. So, it’s managing it itself. It’s quite clever. And you can lock it into EV mode if you want and just use the battery. I mean, I’m flabbergasted. Stunned. Started going down to 2.7. Now, obviously, PHEVs are better in urban areas, but when we were driving this on the highway, uh we were getting 5.7 to the 100 in a big, beautiful, luxur luxurious car like that. It’s not actually that big. Same size as a Cherry Tigo 7, which has also just gone on sale, which is now the most affordable uh PHV in South Africa. I I am just I’m stunned. I really am. There’s something so quirky about this car and it’s actually it’s actually against the law. Uh indicators need to make a noise, right? So that’s my indicator on. Can you hear anything, Sean? Oh, there it is. It’s very subtle because I was driving this the other day and I just went about 50 km with an indicator on which is basically the opposite of a BMW driver. I am a BMW driver. I’m allowed to rip us off, guys. Um, it’s there. You can probably turn it up somewhere. Just before we get into the maintenance aspects of this car and why I don’t think it’s actually really so much of a problem anymore, cuz I used to, but I’ve changed my own mind. You see, the mark of maturity is the ability to change your mind when you are presented with new information. It’s a good quote that I think that was Confucious. Um, it probably wasn’t. Okay, we had an issue when we first got this car and I think it went for a software upgrade because this thing just used to bong at everything. If you look down off the road, the eye sensor here in front of me would say you’re distracted and bong. And then if you just looked at your your speed, it would say you’re distracted. If you looked over here, if you looked at your your your infotainment system, it would say you’re distracted. And and I mean, come on. Like, it it was it was so over the top. And then it went into full flatout tantrum mode. And Ashley managed to annoy it enormously. And then it went for a full 12minute bong session. It just didn’t stop bonging. It was one of the worst Chinese bong examples we’ve ever come Wow, the brakes are snatchy. That we’ve ever come across. Just an absolute bongfest. But the important note here that’s come out of this is that we now have a situation where we know that on local soil they can do software upgrades to make the car more palatable to South Africans less annoying because in China all these safety features and all these bongs are a legal requirement whereas they’re not here and they’re just annoying. So they’re gone which is amazing between when we had the car and when we have it now zero bonging which is fantastic. the safety systems are probably all still there, but now they stay off because remember you could turn them all off, right? But every time you turn the car on, which is Chinese legislation, then all the bongs would have to come back. So, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s basically just that if you cross a lane or if you’re distracted, you you it goes bong like that and just to warn you that you’re doing something wrong. And that’s all a Chinese legislation thing. Okay, let’s get into maintenance of the vehicle. Now, I created a spec table, wink wink, uh, of this car versus some of its rivals. And what was quite interesting was going to the bottom of the spec table and reading the warranties. So, here, 7year, 200,000 km warranty, 10year battery warranty. Uh, Haval 7year 200,000 8-year battery warranty. Toyota 8year battery warranty in the E4 which very very good car. We’ve got a review on that car. Now on Toyota’s forks you get three years warranty and you can extend it at point of purchase. It’s actually not that expensive so I would do it. Fords you get four year. Lots of cars are 5 years 7 years for a Lexus, 6 years for a Nissen. So this idea and Hyundai Kia as well 7 years. Um so the idea of a 7-year warranty is not amazing. 200,000 kesa is very very long and 10 years on the battery is great. Now what’s been quite a revelation in terms of running electric cars especially in China where the electric taxis just run 24 hours because they got about three drivers per car or they just drive themselves um is what manufacturers are finding is that the battery actually lasts the life of the vehicle and also the electric motors just tend not to fail. It’s extremely rare for an electric motor in any electric car or PHV to fail. So your point of weakness here is the good old ICE engine, but maintenance on that engine, which will need to be maintained like any other ICE engine, internal combustion engine, is potentially less than, and the stands to reason, than a normal ICE car because it hardly gets used. I mean, the wear and tear of this car doing 100,000 ks as a PHEV is what I mean, if it’s only burning, we’re now to 2.2, Sean, we’re going to get this under two while we’re driving in the city. That’s insane. Let me actually see if we can get under two. It’s like fuel consumption bingo. Um, the back to the mainland. Sorry, I distract myself a lot. I’m like a squirrel in a nut factory at the best of times. So, the maintenance of PHEVs versus EVs versus ICE cars was uh the subject of an enormous Consumer Reports uh study and other studies, but Consumer Reports is well known in the states for doing this sort of thing. But they found that maintenance costs outside of warranty of looking after a PHEV versus an EV versus an ICE is actually lower. It’s lower than a traditional ICE vehicle. And I’ve always been of the opinion that PHEVs once they’re outside of warranty are going to be an absolute pain in the backside. But also another point to consider is that as as these things become more more common on the road and they start in a couple years going out of warranty, well it’s going to be in seven years time, I suppose, for most of the Chinese cars. You you’re going to have a situation where independent workshops have to adapt. they have to adapt and have the tooling and the safety systems for working with PHEVs. So, I think we’re going to be living in a world where you will be able to maintain this outside of warranty. And that makes an outside of service plan. Oh, there’s a bong. So, I picked up the guy on the bicycle. Now, see, now that’s a good bong. I’ll take that bong. Uh that warning bong because, you know, people are uh vulnerable on their bicycles and pedestrians. So I think that in 5 to 7 years time when these cars come out of warranty, we are going to be living in a world where you can service them and where it’s actually not that difficult. The batteries don’t fail. Manufacturers calculate that they’ll last the life of the vehicle. And I mean depending obviously if you run up 500,000 KS maybe that’s a different story, but I don’t think you’ll need to worry about the battery. Also, if you buy a 5-year-old PHEV, you’ve still got 5 years left on the battery warranty in this case, or 3 years on most of the other vehicles. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the boot area of the JCU J7 plug-in hybrid. Now, we’ve been shooting a lot of plug-in hybrids because they’re arriving from China faster than I can order McDonald’s through a drive-thru. And so we have had a lot of instances where we’ve almost failed the cooler box test or we’ve actually failed it. Sean, have we failed one? Not yet. It’s been close. We did fail one. Okay. So, uh, to my eye, we do have an issue here. Before we get to this, a word from our sponsors. Uh, Buzz Insurance has a 10% discount for all Kazakosa audience members and Kaza Kosa users. So, click on the link somewhere around me or in the description below. Don’t just call Budget and ask for the discount. They’re not going to know really what you’re talking about. You got to click the link and they’ll call you back. Okay. O no. Now remember in South Africa it’s quite important that your goods are covered by a parcel shelf because that is the only way insurance will cover you if a window gets smashed, your stuff gets SM stolen out the back. Right? So having stuff under the parcel shelf is extremely important. Now obviously the parcel shelf comes out but you know look at your boot height here. you you don’t want to go under there. There’s like batteries and there’s something that looks really expensive and important. So, this is it. This is your boot space. There is some stuff under here like your charging cable and that sort of thing. So, there’s a little bit more space under there for like a laptop and that sort of thing, but I think this could be it. Sean? Nah. Can you stretch it over? Ah, you can. Okay. Kind of. Oh gosh. If I’m having to jipo that, it’s a bit of an Achilles heel for this car, especially if it’s one you want to go on holiday in and that sort of thing. Uh, not much I can do about that. That’s just how big it is and that’s how big a cooler box is. [Music] Now, as I mentioned, the J7 JU PHEV is priced almost exactly like the Cherry Tig 7 PHEV, which has just arrived, which is now the most affordable PHV in South Africa, but that’s for the slightly lower spec one. If you go for the higher spec TGO 7, you go for the higher spec J7, well, there only is one spec, you get basically the same thing. That’s because Cherry and JQ have massive shared components. They’re basically the same company and built in the same place overseas. So on an AC unit like this, which is like something you’d have in your home, you uh you’re going to get 6.6 AC into the Let’s get this going, Sean. Card accepted. You’re going to get 6.6 into the car, which you should see here. Power. Come on, power. Off you go. Unplug the card to unlock. There we go. So, it’s running at 6.8 somewhere there. And the other benefit is it charges much faster in terms of DC as well. So the 18 kW battery in here charging from 0 to 100 with a 40 kW DC motor which you’ll find in a shopping mall or an airport or something like that is just about 20 minutes for a full charge at home. If you have one of these which is running at 6 AC which is very easy to do grid cars can help you with that. Get in touch with them. Then you’re filling this up in about 160 180 minutes. call it 3 hours full charge. So have a charger at work while you’re working fill up the battery have a charger at home and then what happens with a PHEV is if you can do up to 80 100ks on range or you can if your commute is lower than that then you don’t need the petrol engine. Your petrol engine as Dave Taylor says is just going to gather dust. [Music] I interrupt this broadcast to bring you the latest fuel consumption of the JU J7 PHEV while Sean and I have been reviewing it. Sean, we’re down to 1.3 here. I have never in my life. So, so the odos here is a bit weird. You don’t really get a odo. It just shows you the last 50ks worth of consumption. 1.3 L to the 100. Anyway, uh normal service shall be resumed shortly. Let’s talk about the interior. Now, one of the highlights of the interior for me is this infotainment system. I feel like the screen is the right size. It’s well placed. It’s absolutely bloody massive. It’s nearly 15 in. It’s like the size of my monitor on my desk. But the one thing that the JU does very, very well with the infotainment system, you don’t have to push your ping your fingers, you don’t have to push your fingers through the screen to get it to do things, right? It’s just so nice and easy to use. And what they have done brilliantly because infotainment screens have been proven to be a bit more dangerous than just having buttons. Look, we’re in the era of screens. That’s just it. There’s just not many buttons left and not many knobs. We’re in the era where knobs has become a thing of the past. But what they’ve done brilliantly is that everything you need to press is huge. It’s like oversized. It’s like imagine you were making something for kids and all the buttons were just bigger than they should be and that’s exactly what you need on the road. Now the rest of it obviously it’s pleather and and you got a pleather steering wheel or leather tech or whatever it’s called but it’s all very very convincing. The other thing in here is that the noise, vibration and harshness which is this nerdy term us motoring journalists use in the industry. Uh well it’s an industry term as well from the motoring side. Um, the noise, vibration, and harshness of the drivetrain and the cabin noise and the road noise is fantastic. Like, it’s like you’re in a soundproof booth in here. And because you never know what the petrol engine is doing, you don’t even know it’s there 99% of the time. It drives like a battery electric vehicle, which I find quite serene and calming. I mean, I can’t wait till battery electric vehicles get to like 250, 300 grand because I’ll probably daily one. They’re brilliant as dailies and that’s why I was saying earlier you get the best of both worlds. So in terms of your cabin and your interior, the design is maybe a little plain and squared off, but that’s kind of the JU design language. If you don’t really like the design, you can go by the Cherry. It’s basically the same car with slightly lower spec. Um I think this is one of the better interiors on the road right now, especially at this price point. So 689900 for this is the current price in South Africa as of our time of recording which is July end of July middle of July 2025 and that is only 10,000 rand more than the topsp spec JU J7 1.6 2 L 1.62 L that’s an interesting engine it just changes displacement for you it’s a new innovation uh 1.6 six turbo. Uh, but keep in mind that the most expensive one is an all-wheel drive. Now, you can get into a J7 and pretty much have the same spec as this. Uh, but that you can get into one for 517 grand, which is really good value. I think the Haval H6 is slightly better value and a bit more a bit little bit cheaper than this as well. Uh, the Tigos are quite expensive, but again, you’re pretty much staying in the family. The Amodas are a bit more expensive, but those are positioned higher than the JU. We we’re driving the C9 PHEV at the moment and it is just blowing our minds how good that car is. But that’s nearly up in a million rand. But the feeling you get in the interior, the quality of the sound system, quality of the materials, the soft touches everywhere, the infotainment, the instrument cluster, you just get this feeling like you are really getting your money’s worth, like a lot. The summary of my opinion on Chinese cars at the moment. And why I think we’re in a new era is these are no longer just good cars because they’re at a good price. These are very good cars that are also sold at very good prices. And on that bombshell, Sean, I think it’s time to end the show. Right, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that. I will jump into the comments with you. Let us know what you think of this car, what you thought of our review. We always appreciate constructive criticism. Did we leave something out? What would you like to see in the next one? All right, guys. We’ll uh see you later. Bye. Let’s find what moves you. cars.co. Hello. Now, I have been asked to tell you about cars. Because I work here. Now, on the site right now, you will find 72,000 cars to choose from, which is quite a lot. And yes, most of them are used cars. However, a significant number, many of them, an exact number of which I don’t know and head office didn’t tell me, but a lot of them are brand new cars and demos. So whether you are looking for a used car, a new car, or a demo, you’ll find what you’re looking for on Cars or Kosa. Check out our mobile site, our desktop site, and our fantastic free app in whichever app store you use.
Welcome to our in-depth review of the brand new Jaecoo J7 PHEV, a game-changing plug-in hybrid that has arrived in the South African market!
In this video, we dive deep into the J7’s impressive performance, highlighting its seamless integration of a 150 kW electric motor and a 1.5-liter turbocharged engine. We put its incredible fuel efficiency to the test, revealing how we achieved an average of just 2.8 L/100 km and even got it down to an astonishing 1.3 L/100 km!
Join us as we explore the J7’s practical side, discussing how its PHEV technology eliminates range anxiety, making it the perfect companion for South African road trips. We also examine its user-friendly 15-inch infotainment screen, its serene, quiet cabin, and the generous 7-year/200 000 km service plan and 10-year battery warranty that comes standard.
While the boot space may be a minor drawback, we conclude that the Jaecoo J7 is not just a “good car for the price”—it’s a genuinely great car that happens to be offered at an exceptional price.
00:26 – Initial Impressions & Market
02:16 – Drivetrain & Performance
02:39 – Fuel Efficiency & Driving
04:28 – Addressing Range Anxiety
00:38 – Software Updates
14:15 – Boot Space & Practicality
19:00 – Interior Features & Design
Save 10% on car insurance when you buy online:
https://www.budgetinsurance.co.za/car-insurance/?vdn=BYCLD&utm_medium=generic direct&utm_source=carscoza
Visit Cars.co.za at:
https://www.cars.co.za
Sell your car on Cars.co.za:
https://www.cars.co.za/sell-car/
Follow Cars.co.za on the socials:
Tweets by CarsSouthAfrica
https://www.facebook.com/CarsSA
https://www.instagram.com/CarsSouthAfrica
@carssouthafrica
Download the Cars.co.za App here:
Apple
https://apps.apple.com/za/app/cars-co-za/id626789511
Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mushroomcloud.cars&hl=en_ZA&gl=US
Huawei App Gallery
https://appgallery.huawei.com/#/app/C100880073
