Why is everyone so interested in the Jaecoo 8? Mat Watson’s driven it to find out

Chinese cars have gone from being a rarely-seen novelty on UK roads to being 10-a-penny, and no other brand has taken off quite like Jaecoo. The Jaecoo 7 is one of the most popular cars on sale at the moment, and there’s a new car which is causing a similar stir.

Even before it went on sale, the Jaecoo 8 shot to the top of Carwow’s most popular car reviews in Q2 2026. On paper, it’s just another Chinese hybrid SUV, and there are plenty of those on offer these days. So what makes the Jaecoo 8 so special? Well I’ve spent a week with the car to find out.

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But first, a quick introduction. The Jaecoo 8 is a large, seven-seater, plug-in hybrid SUV which is up against cars like the Volkswagen Tayron, Skoda Kodiaq and the Hyundai Santa Fe. It’s also closely related to the Omoda 9 and Chery Tiggo 9, both of which also come from parent company Chery International.

Prices start from £45,500, which is about the same as a Volkswagen Tayron eHybrid or a mid-spec Peugeot 5008 PHEV. It’s also around £5,000 cheaper than a comparable Hyundai Santa Fe, but what are you getting for your money?

Well, a healthy dose of deja vu, for starters. When I first saw the Jaecoo 8 on delivery day, that massive front grille and the sleek headlights immediately made me think of the Audi Q7 – although the vertical slats look a bit like a Mercedes-AMG model.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing though, because this Jaecoo does look really smart and premium. I like the rear light bar with the Jaecoo script placed behind the perspex. All the vents are real as well, channeling air around the car to improve efficiency, although the fake exhaust tips are a trend I thought we’d left behind by now.

It looks properly posh on the outside, and it gets even better when you climb aboard. There’s more than a hint of Mercedes GLE about the dashboard layout, just look at the square vents and stepped dashboard, but I think material quality is actually better.

You get soft leatherette on the doors, dashboard and centre console as standard, and all the switchgear is really nicely-damped. The shiny plastic steering wheel buttons do look and feel a bit cheap though, and I noticed that the trim between the door and the dashboard doesn’t quite line up.

The infotainment screen is bright, responsive and pretty easy to use. It’s really handy having shortcuts to turn off the annoying driver assistance systems, but I do wish there were some proper buttons for the climate control like you get in a Skoda Kodiaq.

Moving to the middle row, you have two seating options. You can have a three-seat bench or, as I have here, two captain’s chairs. There’s an alright amount of legroom in the middle row, and headroom is decent, but fitting a child seat proved a right faff thanks to the deeply-buried ISOFIX anchors.

Things take a turn for the worse in the third row, though. For starters, in this six-seater version, there’s no way to flip the seats in the middle forwards to access the back. This means I had to thread myself between the captain’s chairs. It’s rather inelegant, and feels like a ridiculous oversight in a car like this.

You can slide the middle row forwards in seven-seater models to get into the back, but once you’re there you’ll find headroom is really limited, and foot space isn’t great either. A Hyundai Santa Fe is much better for carrying seven people.

The boot is nothing to write home about either. With all seven seats in place, you only get 110 litres of space. This grows to a more respectable 738 litres with the rearmost seats folded down, but that’s still smaller than a Skoda Kodiaq or Kia Sorento.

I was quite keen to get the Jaecoo 8 out on the road and see how it drives. So far, it’s offering luxury car levels of quality and tech for a fraction of the price, but Chinese cars tend to be let down by a lacklustre driving experience.

But I was pleasantly surprised by the Jaecoo 8. It has adaptive dampers, which in their sportiest setting do a good job of keeping the body flat through the bends while also dealing with bumps nicely. It’s not as refined as the more high-end alternatives from Audi or Mercedes, but it matches similarly priced models like the Peugeot 5008 and Skoda Kodiaq.

It’s quick as well. The 428hp hybrid system launched me from 0-60mph in 5.4 seconds according to my specialist timing gear, almost half a second quicker than Jaecoo claims. It’ll also do 83 miles on electric power alone, although the 543mpg economy figure is a pipe dream in the real world. I averaged 45.6mpg during my time with the car.

So where does this leave us? Well, to answer the question I posed at the start, I think so many people are interested in the Jaecoo 8 because it’s essentially an Audi Q7 alternative in terms of equipment, performance and quality, for the price of something much more mainstream.

After spending a week with it, the Jaecoo 8 is a very good car, but it’s not great at being a seven seater. If I was after something to carry seven people, I’d look at the Hyundai Santa Fe instead.

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