Omoda 9 review

From £44,990

With a 93-mile electric range and low price, the plushly equipped Omoda 9 PHEV is gunning for premium SUVs

Calling a car ‘premium’ is a bit tricky, these days, isn’t it? After all, the new Omoda 9 is undeniably premium in its objective merits.

At 4.75m long it’s seriously spacious, it’s got the LED lighting and sleek surfacing of most posh SUVs, and it is absolutely brimming with tech, including autonomous parking, head-up display, heated and cooled seats in the front and back, ‘breathing’ ambient lighting… It’s also got a whopping electric-only claimed range of 93 miles. Mated to the turbocharged, 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and 70-litre fuel tank, that makes for a potential combined driving range of more than 700 miles. By any quantifiable benchmark, the Omoda 9 is a premium, D-segment SUV that’s just as upmarket as a Volvo XC60, Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Lexus RX.

The Omoda 9 sits above the Omoda 5 and forthcoming Omoda 7. Think of it as Omoda's take on the Range Rover Velar.
Vicky Parrott

And yet… How much weight do we put on brand perception and heritage? Volvo, Mercedes et al are established as premium because they’ve earned that reputation over many decades. Omoda, by contrast, was established in 2022 under Chinese parent company Chery as a dedicated global brand to sell outside of its domestic market.

That’s all well and good, but for many buyers you could fit the Omoda 9 with a retractable chandelier and it still wouldn’t really be ‘premium’ simply because of the newness and untried standing of the brand. Certainly not for a few years yet, anyway.

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Omoda is perfectly aware of all this, of course, and it’s making up for its youth by undercutting its premium rivals by many, many thousands. The only Omoda 9 you can get has the all-wheel-drive, Super Hybrid Sytem (SHS) plug-in hybrid powertrain, and the only option is your paint colour. Everything else is included, which makes it much better equipped as well as a whole chunk cheaper than a Volvo XC60 or Mercedes GLC PHEV, for instance.  

But the Omoda 9 is very much in contention with alternatives like the plug-in hybrid Skoda Kodiaq, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, Peugeot 3008 and VW Tayron. All of which are from brands that have spent the past 10 years moving inexorably more upmarket. As we said, the ‘premium’ classification is getting very messy.

Anyway, the Omoda’s got lots of rivals – and whether you consider it properly premium or not will really come down to your opinion.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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The exterior design of the Omoda 9 draws from all sorts of other brands and the result is a bluff, modern, very Lexus-like look from certain angles. It’s inoffensive and smart, if derivative and perhaps a bit boring. At nearly 4.8m long and 1.67m tall, it’s a similar size to the Skoda Kodiaq, although the lower roofline gives it a more stretched look.

As you’d expect, there are full-LED headlights, the obligatory light bar across the back of the car and, if you want it, matt paint. It also has 20in alloy wheels fitted as standard.

The Omoda has a surprisingly good wading depth of 600mm, and ground clearance of 200mm. It'll only tow up to 1500kg, though.
Vicky Parrott

INTERIOR

Omoda 9 2025 Review dash 8854

The Omoda 9 certainly feels classy inside. The single-piece screen curves across the top of the dashboard, housing the 12.3in touchscreen and accompanying driver’s readout, the leather is soft, and the damping on all the switches and stalks feels expensive. The haptic buttons on the gloss black steering wheel look cool too, but in practice they are rather annoying because reflections make it hard to see which button you’re prodding. Naturally, the touchscreen includes wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. 

Nonetheless, the dash looks smart, and the physical rotary controls for the air-con temperature and drive modes are very welcome, common-sense features. It’s a decent driving position too, complete with 12-way electric adjustment. It must be said that there’s a very Mercedes-esque feel to everything in the Omoda. Even the column-mounted gearshifter looks like it could have been taken from a Merc and various design cues, including the scrolling cover for the centre console’s cupholders and door-mounted seat controls, have more than a whiff of the three-pointed star. You can't really argue with that as good inspiration for a top-notch European interior (although Mercedes might feel differently).

The rear seats recline electrically via Mercedes-style controls on the door. Weirdly, the switch that should slide the seat fore and aft is a fixed, dummy button.
Vicky Parrott

There’s tons of space in the back seats, with particularly generous leg room and a nice, airy feel courtesy of the standard panoramic sunroof. A 660-litre boot provides a really decent, broad floor area but it’s shallower than the space you get in a Skoda Kodiaq or Peugeot 5008. There’s also minimal underfloor storage and the fixed rear seats fold in a straightforward 60/40 split, so there are certainly more versatile boots out there. Omoda is planning a seven-seater in the near(ish) future, but that will be a different model from the 9.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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It's an intriguing thing to drive, and a big improvement on the disappointing Jaecoo 7 sibling car – perhaps unsurprisingly, as the 9 sits on a different platform. And because it has all-wheel drive (unlike the Jaecoo), with the front wheels powered by both petrol and electric motor and the rear wheels by electric only, the Omoda 9 feels confident and neutral even if you apply all 443bhp and 516lb ft in one go, to experience the full 4.9sec 0-62mph sprint.

This version of Chery’s SHS plug-in hybrid powertrain also gets a different transmission: a three-speed, multi-clutch, 'dedicated hybrid transmission' (DHT). This means that the 1.5-litre turbochatrged petrol engine can drive the wheels directly when full performance is required, but it is more often decoupled and dormant or functioning purely as a generator to charge the 34.5kWh LFP battery (which is sourced from CATL), leaving the wheels to be driven by one or both of the electric motors.

The drive modes are changed via a physical rotary switch, which is great. The panicked-sounding female voice that announces each mode as you twizzle through them is less so.
Vicky Parrott

It also retains at least 20% of its battery power when it kicks you out of pure electric mode, so that when the engine starts running, the powertrain functions like a Toyota-style full hybrid and will still use the battery to boost fuel efficiency.

And with a 93-mile claimed electric range and 70kW rapid charging, you probably won’t need to bother the petrol engine very much at all, anyway.

Most of the time, the Omoda 9’s SHS plug-in hybrid system is either in pure EV mode or is working like a range-extender, meaning that it drives like an EV. It’s a pretty seamless build of acceleration – quiet, yet muscular and easy to modulate – and you don't notice the gearbox doing its thing even when you call for a sharp burst of acceleration. There’s also very little shunt or hesitation as it switches between full EV or its hybrid modes too – even when the petrol engine does start to power the wheels directly. It's refined too. The petrol engine isn’t intrusive in terms of the noise, other than an annoying background hum when it’s charging the battery. There is noticeable wind and tyre noise on the move, but nothing too bothersome, and the Omoda 9 is all very smooth and calming. It’s not a powertrain that you’re going to relish using, by any stretch, but it is unintrusive, clever and perfectly fit for purpose.

RIDE & HANDLING

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In the Omoda 9, the steering weight and throttle response can be adjusted, as can the electromagnetic suspension, and even the brake response can be tailored for a sharper or softer response. You definitely want the latter with the brakes, by the way, because they’re quite grabby otherwise.

Annoyingly, all that adaptive goodness is spread across two different sub-menus (three, if you want to play with the powertrain settings too) in the car’s touchscreen, so adjusting the adaptive elements independently is a right faff. You can opt for the default set-ups activated by the drive mode switch on the dash, which is the far easier thing to do even if it gives you a bit less control. Perhaps more importantly, there's a shortcut to the prominent driver assistance features, including lane keep assist and speed limit warnings, which you can switch off or on simply by swiping down on the screen. 

Drive modes include Off-road, Snow and Sand, and you also get a parking camera that shows the ground beneath the car to help with manoeuvring in awkward places.
Vicky Parrott

Even in the more aggressive mode, the Omoda 9's steering is light but precise enough, and tailored more to easy manoeuvrability than any sporting prowess. The same can’t be said for the suspension, which becomes wooden and painfully jarring in Sport mode. It settles down in the more everyday mode for a loose-sprung, floaty manner over most road surfaces, but it still thumps and shudders over bigger intrusions and is far from the most well-resolved suspension set-up. The standard 20in alloys probably don’t help matters.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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The Omoda 9 is seriously well priced against premium alternatives like the Audi Q5, Mercedes GLC, Volvo XC60 and BMW X3, especially given that you get all the kit you could want as standard. But if you’re not so picky about brand kudos, then you’ll find similarly spacious and similarly priced plug-in hybrid family SUVs from Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen, MG, Peugeot and more. Mind you, none of them will manage the huge pure-electric range of the 9, which will make the Omoda cheaper to run (provided you can charge easily at home or the office) than most PHEVs.

How realistic is that range? Our test drive was not long enough to provide an accurate range test, but the Omoda was managing just over 80 electric miles to a charge, which is rather impressive. We’ll hold off from any real-world fuel economy estimates at this point, but Omoda tells us that the 9 will do around 46mpg after the battery’s been depleted.

The battery in the Omoda uses new, more energy-dense 'M3P' LFP cells from CATL.
Vicky Parrott

There’s also a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty on the car and an eight-year warranty on the high-voltage battery.

VERDICT

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Overall, the Omoda 9 is a really intriguing prospect. The powertrain tech and value it offers are truly impressive, and it’s pleasant enough to sit in and drive – even with a rather odd mix of ample body lean and reactive ride comfort. However, you can get cars as good as the Hyundai Tucson PHEV for similar money and the MG HS PHEV for drastically less – or we’d settle for the excellent VW Passat PHEV, save some cash and do without the SUV-ness – and that makes the Omoda 9 SHS feel very hard to justify.

If you can get a great deal, then don’t dismiss it, because the Omoda really is perfectly nice to drive and be in, and it showcases some impressive technology. But there is so much competition. The 9 still feels like another excellent example of how quickly Chery’s new brands are evolving, even if it may be another few years before the brand really finds its stride and starts to dent the sales of established players.

The 9 is the most convincing product yet from the Chery's Jaecoo and Omoda brands.
Vicky Parrott.

Vicky Parrott

Vicky Parrott

Vicky Parrott has been a motoring journalist since 2006, when she eventually did so much work experience at Autocar that it felt obliged to give her a job.

After that, she spent seven years as a features and news writer, video presenter and road tester for Autocar, before becoming deputy road test editor for What Car? in 2013. After five years with What Car?, Vicky spent a couple of years as associate editor of DrivingElectric and then embarked on a freelance career that has seen her return to writing for Autocar and What Car? as well as for The Daily Telegraph and many others.

Vicky has been a Car of the Year juror since 2020, and the proud owner of a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 300-SL 24V since 2017. She aspires to own an Alpine A110 and a Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo.