I tested the Tiggo 9 from China's biggest car exporter Chery in a 640-mile festive adventure - with no top-ups

Oh! Plus, in addition to the UK, we’ll visit France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, popping into a couple of traditional Christmas markets along the way, as you do. Well, it is Christmas. Let the Chery Christmas Advent-ure begin.

Chery - an unfamiliar name, with a long heritage

But before we make a mad dash for the early EuroTunnel train — without question, the best, quickest and most efficient way to travel to mainland Europe from the UK — let’s gather some facts on our three cars.

First, Chery? It might be a new name to the UK market, but it arrives with some presence. Founded in 1957, not only has it been China’s biggest vehicle exporter for the past 22 years, it’s the parent company of Omoda and Jaecoo. And it will not have slipped your notice that since their UK launch in the last year, there are more and more of them on our roads. Now Chery is getting in on the action under its own badge. And as the nationwide dealership network grows, Eastern Western Motor Group has been appointed in Edinburgh’s Straiton and Newbridge, plus Dundee.

Worth highlighting here that all three brands very much have their own identities: Chery is the most affordable and meant to make families happy (the name derives from the word 'cheery'), while Jaecoo is all about off-roady, adventure stuff and Omoda is focused on fashion.

Range overview - performance and pricing

The Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid is a five-seat crossover SUV, pairing a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine with a plug-in 18.4kWh battery. The latter provides 56-miles of all-electric range, and combined the units deliver a whopping 745-miles. The Tiggo 8 meanwhile, is a seven-seater and uses the same battery/petrol combination and boasts the same range. Both 7 and 8 deliver 201bhp, with the 7 generating 310Nm of torque, rising to 365Nm in the 8. They both also have identical 0-62mph times of 8.5secs, with charging (30% to 80%) taking just 20-minutes. All three — 7, 8 and 9 — also benefit from self-charging technology.

Centre of attention on this trip is Chery’s brand new flagship model, the four-wheel drive Tiggo 9. Again using the established 1.5 turbocharged petrol engine, here it’s mated to a 34.46kWh battery powering twin electric motors and which delivers 91-miles of electric-only driving. Power increases to 425bhp, with 580Nm of torque. Range though drops to just over 650-miles.

Hold on! That’s only 10-miles more than the target range for our trip, 640-miles. Importantly, this drive has never been viewed as an economy run. We’re going to run all three Tiggo models fast, as the bulk of the trip is motorway. Plus we plan to take full advantage of the unrestricted autobahns in Germany. While the distance should be a dawdle for the 7 and 8, it promises to be a close call for the 9.

As for prices. All cars I’m driving are the range-topping Summit spec. Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid Summit starts at £32,995; the 8 costs from £36,545, making it the cheapest seven-seater PHEV available; with the new 9 entering at £43,105.

The drive - 640 miles, with no top-ups

Leaving Boys Hall in Ashford with a fully-charged battery, we headed for the nearest Shell filling station to top-up the tanks, and grab some sweeties for the trip to Liege and lunch. The blast down to the Tunnel was uneventful and enjoyable. For part of the first leg I was the passenger in the Tiggo 9 as my ‘co-pilot’ wasn’t doing the whole trip, so I initially deferred the 9 to him knowing I’d drive it again on the final leg.

Being the newly-launched model in the Chery range, it’s the Tiggo 9 I’ll be concentrating on. And boy, the cabin is a comfy place to be. There’s a massive amount of space. But even this is outdone by the vast amount of tech which comes with the car as standard kit.

The cabin is dominated by a 15.6-inch central touchscreen, plus a 10.25in digital instrument cluster and a head-up display. The infotainment is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chipset — making it ‘fast and fluid’ apparently — and has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, supported by cooled 50w wireless phone charging.

The dual-zone climate control has an air purification system and is self-cleaning, and the front passenger seat ‘fully reclines’ for ‘total relaxation’. You’ll not be surprised to hear, I didn’t try the fully-reclined position. The driver meanwhile gets 12-way seat adjustment with heating, cooling and massaging functions; something I’ve promised myself to try later in the trip. But what I did explore was the excellent 14-speaker Sony audio system — the ‘most advanced’ ever fitted by Chery — and which blasted out our Christmas song playlist (a great idea at the time, but by halfway through Day 2 we were searching for Springsteen and other more enjoyable playlists).

Elsewhere, there’s a heated steering wheel, key-sensing powered tailgate plus automatic parking. The glass is acoustically treated for refinement, you can remote start the engine and the climate control, there’s a Chery smartphone app, and a ‘Hello Chery’ Virtual Assistant natural speech recognition system, which even understood my Scottish brogue. As for the seating, the central row slides and reclines electrically, and with the third-row seats folded flat you get 819-litres of boot space.

Wafting through France and into Belgium, we soon found ourselves in the centre of Liege Christmas market, enjoying unseasonably warm conditions. Lunch? What else but waffles. Hmmm … they sadly weren’t the best waffles I’ve ever tasted. So we headed to another food stall and shared a plate of baked camembert and slow-roasted, sliced ham: it was ace. Before getting on the road again, we found time to have a quick jaunt on the ‘big wheel’.

With darkness creeping in, and the early evening city centre traffic building up, I eased myself behind the wheel of the Tiggo 8 and headed for the E42 and A60 towards Gestade for our overnight halt overlooking the Moselle River, deep in German wine country. The 8 simply gobbled-up the near 200km route. It feels like it’s been designed specifically for comfort, and though it’s a relatively large car — remember it’s a seven-seater — it feels light on its wheels, making it easy to drive, position and park. It too benefits from double-layered windows, so the cabin is a super-quiet place to be. You would be forgiven for thinking you were travelling in a much more expensive car.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the Christmas market round the corner from the hotel in Gestade at Bernkastel-Kues had closed for the night when we arrived at 7.30pm, but after dinner we did have dander out to see the quaint, medieval-looking square and surrounding buildings. Oh! And its significantly-sized Christmas tree.

Next day dawns wet. I’m in the 7 today, the smallest of the Tiggo trio. That said, at 4.55m long it lists the VW Tiguan, Vauxhall Grandland and Ford Kuga amongst its primary rivals. On the route to Heidelberg Christmas market and lunch, via Mannheim, the 7 was perfectly at ease scooting along the autobahn. And as with its siblings, the car is packed with tech, plus there’s more than ample space for both front and rear occupants.

It’s also quiet, with the Tiggo 7 behaving more like a series hybrid than a parallel one; much more like it was actually a pure EV, with the combustion engine remaining disconnected from the wheels and just running at a constant rev rate to generate energy when needed (which, it has to be said, wasn’t often in our experience).

Once in Heidelberg, we parked deep underground right in the heart of the beautiful city, renowned for its historic university, which is actually the oldest in Germany. And with the ruins of Heidelberg Castle silhouetted on the skyline high above us, we headed through the cobbled streets of the Baroque Old Town to the market, and lunch.

Boys, of course, will be boys. In the centre of the market square sat a children’s merry go round. Being lunchtime, there were no kids around and it was sitting motionless. “Could we have a ride?” we asked the smiley operator. “Of course: hop on.” So we paid our euro each I spent the next three minutes ‘riding my race horse’ round in very slow circles, while others had cars and a bus. We also, it has to be said, found ourselves the focal point of countless tourists’ smartphones. Well at least we gave them something to smile about at Christmas.

Next-up, lunch. Open air at a market, it had to be Bratwurst. On this occasion it was a Wild Bratwurst, heavy with herbs and gamey meat, with a mix of wild boar and pork fat seasoned with traditional spices, served in a bun smothered with mustard. Heaven. But to show we could also be refined, we retired to Cafe Gundel for apple strudel and custard, and a coffee. How civilised.

Back on the road, and on towards the finishing point of our principal 640-mile drive, our overnight halt at Colroy-la-Roche, Alsace. Another near 200km drive, much of it hooning — at least from a UK perspective — down the autobahn. We were no slouches, but the speed of some, actually a lot, of the drivers on the unrestricted sections was eye-opening. But that was mirrored by the high standard of driving, both from the quick drivers and those not so fast.

Again we arrived at our hotel in the dark, but all three Tiggo models had achieved the 640-miles on the allocated full electric charge and single tank of fuel. While the 7 and 8 managed comfortably, understandably the 9 was tighter. It made it with zero kilometres of petrol range left, and just 10% of electric charge. Tight, but mission accomplished. And remember, those 640-miles were tackled in real driving conditions. Believe me, there was no light right foot on this trip.

After another excellent night’s sleep, the final drive took me to Basel Airport in Switzerland via the always excellent Vitra Design Museum. The first section of the drive back to the motorway was, to be honest, the most picturesque and enjoyable of the trip winding through valleys and cute little villages.

This section of driving was very interesting and revealing. Of course, the Tiggo 9 had been perfectly smooth and comfortable cruising the motorways and autobahns, but here on the tight and sweeping roads through the Alsace into Switzerland the 9 — and remember, this is a big, heavy, seven-seater 4WD family SUV tipping the scales at 2.3-tonnes — was surprisingly pliant with very little body roll. From its excellent driving position, steering was always pinpoint-accurate through the flowing corners and noticeably there was no heave or wallow as we pressed on through the bends. Ride quality is clearly one of its strongest cards, and as a result always feels calm and composed, even when being hurried along.

Much of this is a result of Chery giving the Tiggo 9 a Euro-specific tuning to its set-up out of its technical centre in Germany. Body control is always well managed and at all times handling and grip levels are positive are reassuring. Away from the roads, thanks to its light steering and numerous parking aids, it’s a dawdle to manoeuvre and park, even in the tightest of spaces.

So, having parked it safely at Basel airport, it was time to reflect on my Chery Christmas Advent-ure. It was interesting and enlightening driving all three Tiggo Super Hybrid models over an extended period. All three managed the initial 640-mile (1030km) drive on one charge and full tank. But it was my final, additional 150km (94-miles) in the all-new Tiggo 9 which was the standout. And remember, all three Tiggo models come with a seven-year, 100,000-mile vehicle warranty and eight-year battery warranty.

As for a verdict, I’ll focus again on the Tiggo 9. Its combination of price and specification, certainly when it comes to a plug-in hybrid seven-seater, is unbeatable. It’s spacious, comfortable, supremely well-equipped and, clearly, very economical, especially if you capitalise on its 91-mile all-electric range. As the new car market continues to shift rapidly, and less buyers remain brand- and badge-focused, and with Christmas upon us, perhaps it’s time to put a Chery on top.