Changan Deepal S05 Review & Prices

The Changan Deepal S05 is the smaller sibling to the Deepal S07 - it’s an electric SUV from China’s oldest car manufacturer, and like its bigger, sharper-looking sibling it aims to be a more premium offering than the usual budget fare you get from Chinese car manufacturers. And while it does a decent job, with lots of luxury kit, the price tag over some of the best European opposition makes it a hard sell.

The S05 is a bit like the plainer, less shouty brother who doesn’t get the admiring looks that his handsome older sibling gets, but is quietly getting better grades at school.

As a mid-sized electric SUV, it’s a natural alternative to the Skoda Elroq, Kia EV3, Renault Scenic E-Tech, Jaecoo E5, Aion V and MG S5 EV.

It doesn’t make a particularly standout first impression. The Deepal S05 is pretty anonymous-looking, which is a shame as the larger S07 is a bit of a looker. The S05 has typical SUV proportions and several of the now de facto styling cues of a modern electric car - slim daytime running lights with the main headlight units in the bumper, hidden door handles and a full-width lightbar running across the rear.

Some of the details are quite nice - the headlights are properly branded Deepal units and the alloy wheel designs are smart - but otherwise this is a car that really flies under the radar.

Changan Deepal S05: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 278 - 303 miles
Efficiency: 3.9mi/kWh (RWD)
Battery size: 68.8kWh
Max charge speed: 200kW
Charge time AC: 7hrs 30min, 0-100%, 11kW
Charge time DC: 15mins, 30-80%, 200kW
Charge port location: Right side, rear
Power outputs: 268hp, 429hp

The interior isn’t much more individual. As ever, it’s based around a large (15.4-inch) touchscreen in the centre, with precious few physical controls. There are a pair of slots for your phone immediately underneath this, lots of storage cubbies, and a generally minimalist aesthetic.

It does stand out for the feeling of quality inside, though. While some alternatives such as the MG S5 EV and Jaecoo E5 can feel a bit hollow and tinny, the S05 has properly posh build quality. The materials used feel high-quality throughout, even if some (like the textured plastic on the dash top) aren’t necessarily as luxurious as you might hope for.

It’s also surprisingly easy to use. Changan has done a Tesla and removed the driver’s display completely - you get a readout of your speed in the top corner of the infotainment screen instead - but as every model has a standard head-up display you don’t actually need to use it that much.

The touchscreen itself has a fairly useless party trick, pivoting from side-to-side, but it’s one of the easier ones to use as the menus largely make sense and there’s a pull-down menu at the top which gives you quick access to an array of shortcuts.

Not just a nice place to sit, the interior is also extremely spacious. Four six-foot adults can get really comfy inside the Deepal S05, and they can pack heavy too - the boot is a generous 492 litres (bigger than all of its main alternatives, apart from the Renault Scenic E-Tech) and there’s even a gigantic ‘frunk’ which can easily take a weekly shop for two all by itself. Storage for smaller items is okay, with a cavernous space under the centre armrest and big door bins - though these don’t quite make up for the lack of glovebox.

There’s one 68.8kWh battery available and two power options - a rear-wheel drive model with 272hp or a dual-motor all-wheel-drive car with a whopping 435hp. The former has more than enough performance and the longer range of the two, with an official figure of 303 miles on a charge - that sits between the small and large battery versions of the Skoda Elroq, and we found it easy to get quite close to the official figure in everyday driving.

Still, there are longer-range alternatives readily available - and most of them are better to drive, as well. The Deepal S05 isn’t awful - it’s quite comfortable round town and it’s easy to drive smoothly, but there’s a lot of road noise, the steering is weirdly heavy and it leans quite a bit in the bends.

As a long-distance cruiser, it’s pretty good, with safety and assistance tech that works well and is easy to activate. But there are nicer options to drive around town, and many that are more fun and satisfying on a twisting country road.

Verdict

If the Changan Deepal S05 was notably cheaper than the established alternatives it’s going up against, it would be an easy recommendation - it’s comfy, spacious, well-equipped and not bad to drive, with a user interface that feels much more mature than most new Chinese brands can manage. But at nearly £38,000, it’s knocking on the door of the longer-ranged, nicer-to-drive Skoda Elroq and Kia EV3, and in that comparison it’s the Changan that’s found lacking.

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The Changan Deepal S05 range is as straightforward as it gets. There are two models - rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive. The former costs £37,990 and the latter is £2,000 more than this. There’s no charge for any of the paint colours or the eye-catching orange interior finish, and the only items on the options list are a £1,000 panoramic sunroof and a £600 towbar.

Every model is very well-equipped. There are 20-inch wheels, heated and ventilated front seats with artificial leather upholstery and electric adjustment, a 14-speaker audio system (which, while not premium-branded, does sound good), a 50W wireless phone charger, massive central touchscreen plus head-up display, smartphone connectivity, and plenty more besides.

Even so, it does look pricey next to the Kia EV3 - you can get a well-equipped GT-Line model, with a 375-mile range, for under £38,000 after the EV grant. The same goes for the Skoda Elroq, which is comparable in ‘Edition 85’ form. Neither of these are quite as lavishly equipped as the Changan, but they will go further on a charge and are nicer to drive.

Good performance and comfy on the motorway, but the Deepal S05’s steering feels unnaturally heavy, making it quite weird to drive

In town

As an electric car, the Deepal S05 is inherently very well-suited to town driving thanks to its electric powertrain. It’s smooth and seamless with an instant response letting you take advantage of gaps in traffic, and it’s easy to modulate both the accelerator and brake allowing you to make smooth progress.

While there is regenerative braking even the strongest setting isn’t a full ‘one-pedal’ mode - and you have to go deep into the screen to adjust it. We just left it in ‘low’ and braked manually instead.

The S05 handles bumps and potholes in the city quite well, and visibility out the front is good. Rearward it’s not so great thanks to a slim rear window, but the most annoying thing is that the steering is very heavy, making parking or tight turns more effort than they should be.

On the motorway

You don’t need the more powerful AWD model to make short work of the motorway - the RWD Deepal S05 has plenty of shove to get up to speed on a sliproad or execute a decisive overtake.

The suspension is as comfortable at high speeds as it is around town, and Changan’s assisted driving tech works okay - though we wish the cruise control went up in increments of 1mph rather than 5mph.

The only real issue is that there’s a lot of road noise. The excellent stereo does a good job of cancelling this out, but it’s really noticeable especially compared to the hushed Skoda Elroq. It’s possibly the large 20-inch wheels which are responsible for this.

On a twisty road

Few electric SUVs of this size are any real fun on a twisting back road - the Deepal S05 doesn’t buck that trend. It’s fast enough, corners tidily and doesn’t feel like it’s going to topple over, but there’s nothing about the way it drives that encourages you to press on.

The soft suspension means it leans quite a lot in the bends, and the weirdly heavy steering rears its head here too where it just feels a bit unnatural. At a more sedate pace it’s just fine.

The Deepal S05 has a big boot, a huge front storage compartment and loads of passenger space - so why did Changan spoil it by removing the glovebox?

It’s easy to get comfy up front in the Deepal S05. The seats are supportive and adjust a long way, and unusually for a Chinese car you get adjustable lumbar support for the driver. You can save a ‘driving’ and a ‘rest’ profile, so if you fancy a nap while waiting to charge it’s as simple as pressing a button on the touchscreen to recline.

The passenger even gets a leg rest, and the artificial leather upholstery - which extends to the door cards and central armrest - feels nice and soft.

Storage for smaller items is okay. There’s a wireless phone charging pad - a powerful 50W one - and a non-charging phone tray next to it, a pair of relatively small cupholders and a big spot under the centre console where you could fit a handbag. The under-armrest compartment, meanwhile, is absolutely vast - lift out the storage tray and you could fit a packed supermarket shopping bag in there, easily.

However, there’s no glovebox - and that’s just a pain. It means your general cabin detritus either needs to be on display or go into the black hole of the under-armrest compartment, and that’s just annoying.

Space in the back seats

There’s loads of back seat space, and a six-footer can easily stretch out behind a similarly-sized driver. The floor is a little high so your knees do feel a bit high, but you can just extend your legs a bit further.

It’s wide enough for three without too many complaints, and rear passengers get air vents, USB ports and a fold-down armrest - though their rear windows don’t go down very far. There are ISOFIX points on both outer rear seats and plenty of room to fit a bulky rear-facing car seat.

Boot space

The Deepal S05 has a large, 492-litre boot that’s an appreciable chunk bigger than the 427-litre Aion V, 470-litre Skoda Elroq, 460-litre Kia EV3 and 453-litre MG S5 EV. The Renault Scenic beats all of them though, with 545 litres of space.

There’s a standard electric tailgate, and a natty branded parcel shelf - classy - but the opening is a little narrow and there’s a lip to hoick items over. The rear seats do fold flat, but in a rather old-school move you have to lift the seat squab before they’ll lie totally horizontal. It’s not too much of a pain, but it’s an extra step you don’t have to go through in the Elroq or EV3.

The Deepal S05 has a trump card, though - a massive front storage area, or ‘frunk’. At 159 litres (152 in AWD models) it’s easily big enough for a couple of suitcases or a weekly shop, and it’s really easy to access with a lever just by the driver’s knee. Most alternatives in this class don’t have any storage here at all - or if they do, it’s a tiny compartment barely large enough for the charging cables.

The Deepal S05’s swivelling screen is a gimmick, but the rest of the interior is actually very nice

Minimalism is the order of the day in the Changan Deepal S05 - the only physical switchgear you get is a couple of multi-direction toggles on the steering wheel, the window switches, and the column stalks. That’s it - no volume dial, no start button, and just one big screen to control it all.

That’s similar to Tesla’s approach, but it’s also one we’ve seen done unsuccessfully by multiple new Chinese brands with frustrating results. Thankfully, Changan’s efforts are a lot closer to Tesla in usability.

The screen is big, clear and responsive and thanks to a pull-down shortcut menu at the top, it’s pretty easy to find the functions you’re looking for nice and quickly. There are still a few too many menus, but with standard wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto you can bypass most of them. The exception is the climate controls, which are just plain fiddly and annoying to use on the move.

There’s no discrete driver’s display, with information displayed in the top corner of the infotainment screen - again, like a Tesla. But Changan also includes a head-up display as standard, and this is where you’ll find yourself looking more often than not. It’s clear, with just the right amount of information.

It wouldn’t be a Chinese car without a gimmick or two, and the Changan has them - from camping mode and pet mode to a screen which pivots to face either driver or front passenger. If you’re stopped charging and you want to make use of the comfortable passenger seat to watch a movie or something, then you might use this feature, but it seems pretty pointless to us.

What’s not pointless is that Changan’s clearly put lots of thought into the car’s interior materials and build quality. It feels really nice - every surface you touch is covered in soft artificial leather, and it’s really solidly screwed-together. You really have to search to find the sort of cheap plastics that are quite prevalent in an Elroq or an EV3.

The Deepal S05 uses a 68.8kWh battery, which results in a claimed range of 303 miles in the RWD model and 278 miles in the AWD model. That neatly splits the difference between short and long-range versions of most alternatives - the Skoda Elroq, for instance, will do 265 miles in ‘60’ form and up to 360 miles in ‘80’ guise.

It’s a shame there’s no longer-range version, though, especially when similarly-priced versions of the Kia EV3 or Renault Scenic E-Tech can go 375 and 382 miles respectively.

The S05 is fairly efficient - over a week’s driving the RWD model, we averaged 4.1 miles per kWh which results in a real-world range of just over 280 miles. That’s much closer to the claim than you can realistically achieve in many alternatives.

Other running costs are as moderate as they are with all EVs - you pay the lowest rate of road tax and benefit-in-kind tax (for company car users), and no version of the S05 comes anywhere near the luxury car supplement threshold.

Changan Deepal S05 Euro NCAP Score (2025): 5/5

Adult occupant: 94%
Child occupant: 87%
Vulnerable road users: 78%
Safety assist: 76%

The Changan Deepal S05 scored a very impressive five stars when tested by Euro NCAP in 2025, with a super-high score for adult and child occupant protection.

All the usual safety equipment is present and correct, and some items like the lane-keeping actually work a lot better than they do in many alternatives so you’re more inclined to leave them switched on. If you do want to turn everything off, you can do this via some easy shortcuts in the drop-down menu.

The Changan Deepal S05 has an excellent warranty of seven years or 100,000 miles, matching Kia, slightly beating MG and topped only by the likes of Aion, Geely, and Toyota (though the latter is linked to yearly servicing).

There aren’t too many Changan dealers yet, which might make yearly servicing a bit of a pain, and the brand’s also very much an unknown quantity in terms of reliability. As China’s oldest car manufacturer, it’s been going for a long time, but age is no guarantee of experience in this regard.