FIRST DRIVE: Changan Deepal S07. The best EV you’ve never heard of?
What do you get when you cross a Chinese car brand with Italian design and British engineering? Well, probably a terrible pub joke. But in this case, you get this, the Chungan Depot S07, which yes, is another Chinese car, but it’s one that’s been shaped by the Italians and has genuinely been engineered for British roads. So, in this video, we’re going to find out whether it has the design, tech, and practicality to take on rivals like the Tesla Model Y and Jinny’s favorite, the Scoda Enyak. And we’ll see whether that British tuned chassis really gives it an edge on our bumpy roads. But before we get stuck in, don’t forget to hit subscribe and turn on notifications so you see all of our latest reviews. Oh, and by the way, I’m Sam. Nice to meet you all. [Music] The Italians, they know a thing or two about design, don’t they? And in this, I think they’ve done a really good job of creating some serious purpose. I think this S07’s got these long leading lines and also some angular aggressive headlights and also some genuine aerodynamics. Cuz look down here, we have proper vents as well. Plus on the side of the car, it’s easy for me today because there’s just one specification of wheel that you can get. You only get 20inch wheels on this car because you only get one spec of deep. Honestly, this car couldn’t be much simpler to talk about. The side of the car is that classic SUV coupe shape, which means you’ve got this kind of angular, slightly narrowing glass house. It’s still quite chunky. It’s still quite tall, but it looks sporty. Although, the sportiest bit is definitely at the back here because look, we’ve got this sporty spoiler. Also, we have a central brake light. And you’ve got your standard these days fulllength light bar, which has a cool design and also an illuminated badge in the middle. Plus, Formula 1 fans will be happy to see that we get a fog light down there. How very drive to survive. Oh, yeah. And if you like towing, this Changen’s actually quite competitive because if you add a toe bar to it down here, it will be able to pull a brake trailer of 1.5 tons, which, okay, is 100 kg less than a Tesla Model Y can manage, but it’s 100 kg more than the Scoda Enyak. We know you’re not all looking for a new EV. And that’s why we’ve built our own used EV marketplace at electrifying.com. Packed with great deals and details like battery warranties so you can buy with confidence. Just scan the QR code on screen to browse while you’re watching. Do you know what? When I got in this car, I was ready to get quite bored with this interior. It looks quite familiar to what we see everywhere nowadays. You know, you got a central screen, minimal buttons, and just a very simple layout. But when you spend a bit of time with it, you realize it’s actually quite nice. Firstly, the fit and finish is really very good. I mean, this is a fully vegan leather interior, as most cars are these days, but it’s all cushioned and it’s all put together really nicely. And if you want something a bit brighter than this very dark interior, you can get a much more vibrant finish, which means it doesn’t have to be so sensible. Plus, all the most important things in this car do feel wellought out. Now, I have to say firstly, the seats are really comfortable and they have multiple adjustments and they’re squishy and cushioned in all the right bits and they hold you nicely. Now, here’s a cool party trick. You see how the screen is currently tilted towards me, the driver? Well, watch this. When I get out, [Music] it tilted to the middle, but then it does this. It angles at me, the passenger. So, it will always tilt towards the occupant in the front. Unless of course there’s a driver in as well who gets priority. I can show you the system actually is quite good as well because while it feels familiar in many places um you know you’ve got what looks to me quite Androidy in some ways but it’s actually very easy to use very smartphone in its reaction. The negative is that the climate control is all in here. Unlike for example the Renault scenic where you get some buttons you don’t get any here. It’s all in this section down here, which means it’s a couple of taps and also quite a lot of your attention on the screen to make adjustments. But the car does fight back with some pretty decent voice control tech, which can be used to adjust your climate, but also to change things like your mirror positioning. So, I could say, for example, hi, hello. Can I change my mirror settings? There you go. It pops up. So, then I can now use these controls to make physical tweaks to the mirror. So, that’s pretty useful, especially given that infotainment systems can be quite fiddly. Also to call out is the navigation system. Of course, you get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto wirelessly, but the nav in this car is pretty good. It looks like a Google system, although the brand hasn’t said it is. So, maybe they’ve just made a very similar version, but it works nicely, and it works with a head-up display that projects directly onto the windscreen. And it also gets augmented reality as well, so you’ve got arrows pointing at where you need to go directly in your line of sight. I can’t pretend that that is actually super easy to use without this as well, but it does help. Other things to note are there’s no instrument cluster ahead of you here, which in my books is a big negative. I like having that very close information there, but as I said, the head-up display helps with that. And you also do get some buttons. And another thing I like is the drive selector is up here, just like Teslas of yesterday year and Mercedes as well. So, it’s out of the way, but very easy to use. Weirdly though, I have noticed the indicator when you use it is very quiet. So, there are a few times where I hadn’t realized I hadn’t actually cancelled the indicator. It wasn’t until I noticed the flashing light on the head-up display. That’s something to note, but you probably get used to that. Now, you might have spotted the wood effect on the door here, but it’s not wood. It actually is plastic, but it’s there because Changan reckons this interior is inspired by that of a yacht. Um, that’s the only bit I can really identify to have that reference. But I would much prefer if it was just in a soft squishy plastic to be fair. Not least because it’s actually quite firm and I don’t think it looks particularly brilliant either. You’re not short of space up front here. Of course, you got your cup holders. You got space up here. All bit with just one wireless charging mat for your phone. But you’ve also got a lot of room under here. Look, you’ll see there is tons of space to throw a handbag or maybe even some bigger items in there as well. And in here, look, it’s a cooled box, which look, I can get my arm right in there. So, that’s a lot of space. Plus, the glove box isn’t too bad either. That is a normal size glove box, which in this day and age when some brands are giving us tiny ones, is definitely a good thing. And you even get an ISOIX bar in easy reach on this front seat, which means it’s very familyfriendly. While we’re here, let me dive further into the menus here and show you something you might have expected me to show you when we were driving. And that is how to adjust the drive modes themselves. Because without buttons and controls here or no knobs like you get in other cars, you have to dive into the menus, which can of course get a little bit distracting. Now, driving in normal mode, in custom modes, is is simple enough. Just changing between the buttons up top is pretty easy. But it’s when you want to customize particular components of the car, for example, the one pedal driving or how the brake feel is or even how the steering weight is, that’s when it gets quite distracting because you have to go into the menus here. So, look, you’ve got different settings for different things. And as you’re driving, you’re going to have to look across and read each layer. So, that’s a little bit tricky to do on the move. But there is something I’ve never seen before in an electric car, and that is an adjustable one pedal driving mode that doesn’t just give you several modes, but also an adjustment from 0% right the way up to 100%. So, I guess in theory, you have 100 versions of one pedal driving. And it does work. Honestly, you do get a complete just rolling like you’re in a normal automatic car feeling when you have it in 0%. And at maximum, it does actually feel close to a proper one pedal driving experience. Maybe not the best one out there, but it is definitely effort reducing. But yeah, do you know what? I just wish you had that in buttons. Maybe on the wheel or something. Be so much easier. I’m impressed with this back. You know, there is more leg room than I’d expected. And the seats are just as comfortable as the ones in the back. They’re really supportive on your lower back especially. And look, even with this seat set how I like it, which is low and quite far back, cuz I’m just under 6 foot. Well, I’ve still got a bit of leg room and a bit of foot room even as well under the seat, which isn’t common, especially in cars with batteries in the floor. And if you notice, there’s no tunnel through the middle cuz this is obviously a bespoke EV platform. So, it means even for middle seat passengers, you can slide across no problems whatsoever. Honestly, as a comfortable back seat experience, this is really, really good. And there are some creature comforts. In fact, you’ve got a touch screen down here which controls your uh temperature and also your fan speed. Plus, you can even make adjustments to the front seat over here just to annoy the passenger. So, if they’re getting in your way, you can push them forward a little bit and crush their knees. And if it’s too bright for you, well, you can also adjust the blind as well, which is quite cool. Keep those UVs off you. Keeps you looking young. The S07’s boo isn’t the best in class, though. In fact, it’s pretty average for space with 445 L of room, which is 150 L fewer than the Scoda Enyak can swallow. And you don’t even get underfloor storage. Fold the back seats down though and the floor is at least pretty flat. Although 1,385 L of space still ranks the Changen below the Scoda, Tesla Model Y, and even the Renault Scenic. But you do get something not all EVs get these days, and it is a front boot or a frunk. That’s actually quite generous. Look, if I put Manis’s Pase in there, there’s room to spare. Now, you might think that a British tuned Chinese car might have a home advantage on bumpy British roads. And well, first impressions suggest it probably does actually because you know what? The ride, the refinement, and even just the way it deals with some of our bigger speed bumps is very impressive. It’s actually quite comfortable, and to go with those comfy seats overall, it means this is quite a relaxing car to drive. The only times you feel it struggle a little bit with the suspension over bumps is some of the more surprising cracks and ruts, stuff that’s a bit more aggressive or a bit more small on the road. Then you get a few jiggles, but otherwise the car does feel nice and composed and all right, the spec sheet doesn’t lie. It’s not that quick compared to some of the fastest rivals in this class. It will do naugh to 62 in a claimed 7.9 seconds, but it doesn’t feel as rapid as say the Tesla Model Y, which really does thump you in the back. What it does feel though is effortless and just nice and easy to drive smoothly. And well, the regen is quite good in this car. As I mentioned before, you can’t adjust it on the fly, which I think is a shame. I really like how brands such as Hyundai and Renault have paddles on the back of the wheel so you can adjust the regen as you go. Unless you have to dive into those menus I showed you earlier. But if you do ramp it up to the maximum, you do have something very close to a one pedal driving experience. As I’m demonstrating here, I’m having to slow down in traffic and I only have to touch the brake at the very end to basically bring the car to a complete stop. Otherwise, I just come on and off the accelerator, which is really good if you drive an EV in a mixed environment. It’s nice that this isn’t too jerky on the motorway, but it is capable of almost bringing you to a stop in your traffic. Visibility is pretty good as well because this car is quite square on its edges and also because you’ve got really chunky door mirrors, which are as tall as they are wide. Natural analog visibility is good. I can really see over the nose and you’ve got the arches on the bonnet that help me guide the car along. But really, what’s important, of course, for an SUV that might live in an urban environment is visibility out the back. And well, I have to admit, the rear window is quite narrow because of that nice sporty rear boot lid. But it’s made up for because the camera tech on this car is really very good. When you put it into reverse, you’ve got high resolution, really crystal clear camera graphics, and you’ve also got an above view and you can also see underneath the car as well. So, if you’re driving over big potholes that you want to avoid, it’s easy to do that. Plus, if you indicate on the road or even if you just want to see around the car when you’re going, you just have to click the 360 button on the steering wheel and you get your full camera views here, which is really nice. And while generally speaking the car is quite refined, the motor noise is near silent because the motor’s out back powering the rear wheels. So you can’t hear it from up front here, there is a little bit of wind noise when you’re on the motorway over the A-pillar especially. It’s nothing you would be bothered by, especially if you had the radio on. But if you drive with the radio off, you could just about notice it a little bit. But there was something I’ve been noticing a lot more throughout our drive, and that is some weird rattle coming from the back there. I can’t tell if it’s a parcel shelf, although we’ve got the parcel shelf retracted, so I don’t know what it is. It’s really annoying. Nope. What is it? Hang on a minute. I think I figured it out. It’s the bloody number plate. me. It’s your stuff. Does it steer like a British tuned car? Well, as Brits, we’re famed for making cars that go around corners really, very well, and this definitely feels quite sporty in some ways. The steering is quite quick to react. It doesn’t have much weight to it in the natural setting. You can weight it up if you want to, but I like it in the lighter setting. And because you’ve got that adjustable one pedal driving, it means you can actually carry some speed into a corner and just coast through, allow the regen to put the energy back into the back battery and just feel quite nice as you do it. The car doesn’t roll around. It feels nice like the center of gravity is low. And it’s helped, of course, by the fact that the battery, the 80 kWh battery is underneath the floor. Now, I need to tell you about charging because the stats on this car are interesting. So, here they are. So, it will charge at maximum of 92 kW, which means in this car with its 80 kWh battery, you can go from 10 to 80% in about 48 minutes, which a few years ago would have been all right, but in today’s world, and especially in this highly competitive class, it’s like 15 minutes longer than the Tesla Model Y, which has more range. And even compared to Jinny’s beloved Scoda, this is 20 minutes slower than the bigger battery version of that. So, if you’re the sort of person who hammers up and down a motorway all day long or you’re a company car driver, this might not be the easiest one to live with. But, I mean, if you charge at home overnight, you’re not going to notice the difference, are you? [Music] You know, I’ve just been checking this car’s Euro end cap scores, and I’ve been surprised because I expected it to score very, very well for all the electronic stuff, all the things that save you because the computer’s figured it out. But actually, this car scores five stars because of its strength. I mean, it scores really highly for adult occupant safety and also for child safety as well. And when it comes to the electrics, it’s very good, but it’s actually not the class’s best. So, what this car feels like is just a really tough, safe place to be. Changen’s clearly confident in the Dool’s reliability, too. Offering a 7-year or 100,000 mi warranty for the car and an 8year or 120,000 mi warranty for the battery. So, what do we think of the new Chungan Deepel S07? I have to be frank, if you’re a long-distance company car driver who hammers up and down the motorway all day, the slower charging speed and the not particularly amazing range does mean that this is probably not going to be the easiest car to live with dayto-day. But if you’re a private buyer who values safety, practicality, ride comfort, and just ease of use, I think this is a very strong entrant to the class. Although, of course, if you are a private buyer, price is often what it all comes down to. And this Chungan, well, it’s kind of in the middle of the class because at £39,990, it is £5 grand cheaper than the Tesla Model Y, but it’s a few hundred more expensive than Jinny’s beloved Scoda. Although, for the money, you do get a lot more standard equipment in this car. So, actually, this is a very competitive offering, and it’s definitely a thumbs up from me, not least because it comes with that European flare. But what do you think? Let us know in the comments below. [Music]
#changan #deepalS07 #teslamodely #EV #EVNews #CarReview #FirstLook
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Do we really need another Chinese Tesla Model Y rival? Well, meet the Changan Deepal S07 – a bold new electric crossover that thinks it has the answer. In this first look, Sam Sheehan takes you on a full walkaround, checking out the styling, the hi-tech interior, and the big numbers Changan claims for range and performance.
With up to 295 miles of range and plenty of tech, the Deepal S07 appears to tick a lot of boxes, but is it different enough to stand out in a market already crowded with new EVs from China? And would UK buyers be tempted if it lands here?
Join Sam as he puts the Deepal S07 under the spotlight and asks the big question: is this the Chinese SUV we’ve actually been waiting for – or just more of the same?
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https://www.electrifying.com/used-cars/
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0:00 – Changan Deepal S07 intro: Chinese EV with Italian design & British tuning
0:52 – Exterior design review: coupe-SUV styling, lights & aerodynamics
1:55 – Towing capacity vs Tesla Model Y & Skoda Enyaq
2:29 – Deepal S07 interior review: quality, comfort & features
3:15 – Rotating touchscreen & infotainment tech demo
4:31 – Voice control, navigation & AR head-up display
5:35 – Storage, practicality & family-friendly touches
6:36 – Drive modes & one-pedal driving adjustment
7:58 – Rear seat comfort, space & passenger features
8:59 – Boot space, frunk & practicality comparison
9:39 – Ride comfort & British road test impressions
11:23 – Steering, handling & British-tuned chassis feel
14:03 – Charging speed, range & motorway usability
14:53 – Safety, Euro NCAP crash test & warranty
15:36 – Verdict: price, rivals & is the Deepal S07 worth it?
