Geely EX5: Polestar’s Parent Company Brings BIG Value
Hello and welcome to a speedy, hasty, micro episode of the Everything Electric Show. Let me explain the deal. We’re in Farmra. It’s live show weekend. Around us, chaos. Stages being built, cars being unloaded from lorries. And amid the chaos, we spotted something that we’ve never seen before. Something that we’ve never filmed with before. This the new Ghily EX5. So, I’ve stolen it. And there’s a team of people in H Highiz looking for me. Soon they’ll find me and tase me and take the car back. But first, we’re going to do a really quick walk around of this car because I think it’s rather interesting. Shall we? Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and clean tech are funded by our fun-packed test drivetastic events in Farra, London, the Southwest, the North, Melbourne, and Sydney. And next up, Everything Electric Melbourne. And new for UK viewers, you can now buy a battery EV and much more at everythingleelectric.store. Now back to the episode. Now then, Gily, who be that? What am Gily? Well, you might know them as the parent company of Lotus, Volvo, Polestar, Zika. But this is interesting because this is the first own brand Gily products that we’ve seen and it really does look quite nice. Now, this the JU E5 and the Cherry Amoda, they all sit in a similar space in terms of price and size. They’re all kind of mediumsized crossovery things in the kind of high 20, low30,000. This is on the more expensive side of those three and a bit more premium, too. Design, what do we think? I rather like it. I enjoy these very technical, slimline headlights. So, I really like the color of this launch car. It’s a fairly uncontroversial medium-sized high-riding crossover family car. I will say from certain angles, a little bit derivative. I’m getting more than a little bit of previous generation Porsche Macan from the back. I suppose if you’re going to copy, copy something pretty. Bit of spec info for you. We’ve got a single motor, frontwheel drive, 215 brake horsepower setup. That’s married to a 60 kWh LFP battery WLTP range quoted as between 255 and 267 mi. Charging speed of 100 kW. They’re not mindblowing numbers. It’s not groundbreaking in terms of its charging speed or even its range or efficiency. You always kind of expect that Chinese cars are just going to be superlative in terms of their battery tech. And that’s certainly something that a lot of BYD products offer. What I will say is that starting at £32,000, the Gily EX5 is not so cheap that it’s undercutting its closest rivals. That is bang on par with things like Kia EV3, Volvo EX30, Scoda Lrock, properly good cars from brands that people have heard of and are familiar with, which means that this thing is going to have to find some other way of outshining those very, very formidable rivals. [Music] Interior then. Oh, this is quite smart. Unusually buttonladen for a Chinese car. They tend to bury absolutely everything in the infotainment screen. But look, I’ve got a couple of buttons down here to turn my AC on and off, to demiss. I’ve got proper window switches, although they are kind of backwards. You have to press them the opposite way you would think to open the window, I’ve noticed. Nonetheless, happy to see them there. Nice to see proper buttons on the steering wheel as well. And it’s a really smart looking steering wheel. I like this kind of oblong shape. And I like the two-tone, bit like a Bentley. I really like these seats. They have a zero gravity mode where they kind of recline and turn into little beds for when you want to have a little nap waiting for a charge. That’s quite nice. They’re really comfortable as well actually. Nice looking interior. I like the color scheme. I quite like this sort of faux wood. I think it’s faux wood in the center here. And what I will say is it probably looks nicer than it feels in here. It looks quite premium. It feels okay. There’s a few things uh that betray the fact that this is a pretty affordable car doing an impersonation of a luxury vehicle, but they do enough right. There’s enough good stuff. The steering wheel feels nice. It’s good soft leathery material. I like the kind of weight of the very Polestar derived door handle. It’s It’s pretty good. Big center touchcreen with many themes to choose from. Uh, this theme is weird AI animal pictures. That’s the very troubling kitten. We also have, let’s see, um, we can have different different places. That’s nice. That’s less upsetting, I find. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Those are AI, too, aren’t they? Just use real photos of places. Maybe it’s generating them on the fly. I don’t know. H. Okay. Uh, screen looks pretty good. It’s not hyper responsive. It’s pretty quick. It’s pretty quick. It’s nothing remarkable. You expect lightning fast software from the Chinese brand. This is okay, but it looks quite intuitive. It’s pretty straightforward. Nice big, easy to hit buttons. I’d say that looks reasonably user friendly at first glance. We’ve got dual wireless phone chargers. I like when there’s two of them cuz you know it’s not just you the driver that might have a phone. There is a big pano sunroof, but I’m not seeing any way to open it. So, I’m guessing I have to go in here, which is a little bit annoying. This is a good UI test. Let’s see how long it takes me. Here it is. Sunroof. Sun shade. I like how there’s a slider to choose how open you have your sun shade. I’d prefer a little thing up here, but there you go. This is interesting. What does that do? Does that Oh. Oh, you don’t get many panoramic sunroofs that also open. That’s really good. Okay, I like that. Nice big opening as well. Practically in a convertible. Bonus points for the opening panoramic roof. Also, just noticed there’s USBC ports. Nope, those are lights. Never mind. As you were [Music] What about the back seats? Well, ooh. Ooh, that seat is right back in my driving position. That is very Wow, that’s very impressive. Okay, we’ve found the thing this car is best at. This is a positively small to mediumsized crossover. And this is massive in the back. Really low floor. None of that knees up by your ears nonsense. Loads of space. It’s really nice with the sunroof as well. Okay, this is a lot of space for the money. Impressive at a glance. Am I seeing enough to tease me away from a Ki V3 uh Volvo EX30? Well, it’s roomier than them, that’s for sure. If you’re looking for the most space for the money, this might be it. From a very brief drive this afternoon, wasn’t absolutely blown away by the ride. I found it a little bit uh firm, not especially pliant over bumps. But to use an example, the JU, the first JKU model that arrived in the UK, the 7 was slated for its ride. And the new one that’s just shown up, the five, which is also available as an EV, much improved. This is the thing about these Chinese mega brands. They kind of just offer a product, they’re like, “What do you think about this?” And then based on the feedback, they just fix it, tinker with it, change it, release a new model that has resolved all those problems. So I kind of look at this thing as a starting point for the Gily brand in the UK. And it’s very strong starting point. It looks pretty good. Quality is decent. Space and equipment for the price, massively impressive. I have to stop now because there are literally people in high viz walking towards me. They need this car back because it’s going on a stand to be on display. here at Everything Electric Vombra for the very first time in the UK. But I’m going to borrow this and drive it and live with it in the coming weeks because I’m quite interested in it. I do get a sense that Gily has kept a few cards to themsel to play just for their own named brand. And from first impression, I am more impressed than I have been by the Jacuz and the Emotas of this world thus far. So, there we go. The Ghily EX5. What do you think? What do you think of the first Ghillie branded car that we’re going to see in the UK? Are you interested? Would you consider one? Do let me know in the comments. Please make sure to like and subscribe if you have been. Thanks for watching. Now visit electric vehicles.expert where you can follow everything electric and keep current with clean technica, the driven electric and many more.
Description: This week, Jack gets behind the wheel of the brand-new Geely EX5 — the first model to carry Geely’s own name. He’s finding out whether Geely has been keeping something special up its sleeve and how its different from Jaecoo and Omoda.
0:00 Introduction
1:00 What makes Geely different?
1:41 Design
2:10 Range, power and price
3:13 Interior
6:33 Backseats and space
7:17 How does it drive?
7:56 Concluding thoughts
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