We take the new Jaecoo 7 SUV along South Africa’s famous Garden Route

Imagine the Pacific Coast Highway, but with penguins. The ‘Garden Route’ is one of the world’s most fabled journeys, nearly 200 miles of coastal road linking Cape Town in the west to Port Elizabeth in the east, taking in some of South Africa’s most spectacular national parks and Indian Ocean views. To experience this landscape in any vehicle would be a delight, but we’re here to explore the abilities of a genuine challenger brand.

Only recently launched in the UK, but still a mystery to some, you’re about to start seeing a lot more of the Chinese car brand Jaecoo. The Jaecoo 7 boasts the three things most motorists in the UK are looking for in a new set of wheels: It’s a mid-size SUV; it’s hybrid with fantastic fuel economy and all the latest digital technologies; and it’s extraordinary value. The downside is that it could lead to the extinction of our own homegrown automotive industry. So, on the one hand, comfort and flexibility at a bargain price, on the other the collapse of the western economies.

In the past decade, China has set about dominating the car industry’s shift to electrification. Not only does it have unfettered access to half the world’s lithium, cobalt and graphite (all essential materials for making EV batteries), but it has transitioned from merely copying what other countries make (and doing it much cheaper) to achieving a high degree of autonomy in engineering and design to go with the manufacturing might.

In fact, having enticed some of the West’s most experienced executives, designers and engineers with their renminbi, and invested heavily in specialised education and cutting-edge manufacturing plants, China has gone from bootlegger to global leader. The country now sells 60 per cent of the world’s EVs and 80 per cent of the batteries that power them and is set to overtake the United States in autonomous driving technologies. A huge domestic market and enticing incentives to both manufacturers and consumers hasn’t hurt. There are some 150 Chinese auto manufacturers, while the likes of Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW all have significant factories there.

But there has been a steer towards hybrids, which are less expensive to buy than fully-electric vehicles and are booming in sales. Hybrids offer the best-of-both-worlds, wherein motorists benefit from emission-free journeys in urban areas and long range on motorways and in the countryside. Range anxiety, sluggish charging infrastructure and expensive energy means that fully-electric vehicles are undesirable and impractical for many customers. That’s true of those living in Zhoushan just as it is for people in Sudbury. And China’s ambitions are nothing if not international and expansive.

Which brings us back to the Jaecoo 7; a car that’s sure to appeal to a lot of Brits. It’s a handsome machine albeit slightly forgettable – the sort of indistinguishability that’d make it a good getaway car - with styling cues reminiscent of the Jeep Cherokee at the front and Range Rover Sport and Jaguar F-Pace SVR at the back. Inside it’s minimalist with a huge central touchscreen, like a Tesla or Volvo, and it’s well-equipped with heated this and connected that. In terms of size, it sits between the Range Rover Evoque and the larger Velar. Yet were you to spec the Evoque to the same equipment level as a standard Jaecoo, you’d be presented with a £63,000 bill. The Jaecoo’s sticker price: just £35,000, with a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty thrown in.

To test drive the car outside of its normal suburban comfort zone, Wallpaper* headed all the way to South Africa to drive the ‘Garden Route’. Africa, it should be noted, is another area where China is making remarkable inroads. Since 2009, the superpower has been Africa’s largest trading partner. It has invested across the continent, funding infrastructure projects, extracting oil and minerals, improving healthcare, importing Chinese workers, establishing military bases, and making multi-billion-dollar loans to African governments. Some might call this neo-colonialism, others development and mutually beneficial cooperation. Presently, Eswatini is the only African nation that officially recognises Taiwan.

Despite the nauseating marketing-led portmanteau origins of the Jaecoo name (think ‘hunter’ (Jaeger) and ‘Cool’), it’s a minor gripe given how effectively this export ticks the boxes when it comes to the driving experience. The ride is good, feeling direct in the corners whilst smoothing out the potholes. You can firm up the steering to ‘sport’ by going through the screen menu, which makes it well-weighted. The transition between electric and petrol power is seamless and, while the interior materials aren’t going to concern Lexus or Mercedes, it feels no less plush or precise than the more expensive Nissan Qashqai.

A combined 201 bhp from its 1.5-litre petrol engine and hybrid system isn’t about to embarrass the Porsche Macan at the lights, but its 310 Nm of torque means it never feels like it’s dragging an anchor. Zero to 62mph is a respectable 8.5 seconds. Capable of a real world 55 mpg and a range of over 745 miles, we were easily able to complete the entire Garden Route without once having to refill its 60-litre tank or plug in the battery.

Unlike a typical plug-in hybrid, Jaecoo’s third-generation ‘Super Hybrid’ powertrain self-charges when you back off the gas and never drops to 0 per cent. Electric-only range from its 18.3 kW battery pack tops out at 56 miles – more than enough for most people’s day-to-day usage. Had we needed to charge, I’m told a 40kW charger will boost the batteries from 30-80 per cent full in 40 minutes or will fully charge using a home charger in around six and a half hours. The figures for thermal efficiency and carbon emissions (23 g/km) are genuinely mighty – the result of innovative ignition timing that lowers combustion temperatures – and its battery safety technology is class-leading.

Should one opt for a combustion-only version, the J7 gets even cheaper. Front-wheel-drive is available from £29,435 and all-wheel-drive from £32k. Due to how the tech is packaged, the hybrid model we drove is only available as a front-wheel-drive. That mightn’t make it a true competitor for Land Rover, but it’s refined enough to pose a very serious challenge to the likes of VW, Nissan, Kia and Ford, and may even tempt some customers out of their BMW X1s and Audi Q3s. In these times of economic uncertainty, who wants to blow an extra £10k on a badge?

Except of course, it’s the Chinese economy that’s going to benefit here. The ‘jaeger’ Jaecoo is on the hunt, ready to eat mainstream European car makers for lunch.

Jaecoo.co.uk, @Jaecoo.uk