OPINION: The Skywell BE11 is the worst car you can buy today

Skywho? Skywell is the latest in a growing crop of Chinese electric car manufacturers aiming to make inroads into the UK market. But unlike BYD, GWM or MG, Skywell doesn’t really have a huge foothold in its home market to bolster its credentials.

Formed by the joint venture of Skyworth Electronics and Nanjing Golden Dragon Bus (fantastic name), Skywell builds mainly electric and hybrid SUVs. The BE11 is its first offering for the UK market. Is it an auspicious start?

Well, first impressions aren’t favourable. I’ve criticised some Chinese cars before for looking plain or derivative, but the BE11 takes it to a new level. With its featureless front, copycat lightbar at the rear and dull detailing, it looks like what you get if you ask ChatGPT for ‘a picture of a car’.

The interior is like something you’ve bought from Temu – it looks great in photos, but in the flesh you’re immediately disappointed. What looks like it might be wood veneer is actually fake vinyl. There are lashings of fingerprint-heavy piano black surfaces, and the chrome trim on our test car actually already seemed to be tarnishing.

It’s inside where the first of the BE11’s redeeming features comes to light (don’t worry, it’s a short list). Space in the rear seats is palatial – I’ve been in luxury limousines with less kneeroom and headroom than this. Less impressive is the 467-litre boot, which lags behind similarly-sized alternatives, but it’s still a reasonable capacity for a family car.

The BE11’s specs list is a very interesting read. At first, it looks really promising – standard equipment includes loads of premium features that would be pricey optional extras on some alternatives, like a full-length panoramic sunroof, massive dual screens for infotainment and driver information, keyless entry, wireless phone charging, ambient lighting, even vehicle-to-load functionality and a posh Metz sound system.

But because the BE11 was type-approved in Europe before regulations demanded it, Skywell hasn’t fitted any driver assistance systems. Not one. While that means you don’t have to contend with annoying speed warnings (good) it also means you don’t get adaptive cruise control or even autonomous emergency braking. Six airbags is pretty much your lot for safety kit. That’s borderline unforgivable for a car in 2025, let alone one of this price.

As I spent more time in the BE11 it became harder to have any generosity of spirit towards it. The central touchscreen is comically bad – there are zero physical controls, so you have to rely on its labyrinthine menu system to accomplish anything.

At every turn there are functions that either tripped me up or made me laugh – the sat-nav software being called TurboDog9 being one of them. The fact the car’s photo on the 360-degree camera still thinks it’s a Skyworth, rather than a Skywell, is another. The DAB radio defaulting to GB News on every startup was amusing, but given my lefty leanings would have made me apoplectic if I’d actually bought the car myself.

Then I started driving. Oh dear. While the BE11’s electric motor has a reasonable degree of performance, the suspension is so soft that I really didn’t want to use any of it. Hit a big bump in the road, and it’s 4-6 working days before the BE11 stops wobbling about.

I didn’t dare risk carrying any speed into a corner, either. Not only is the steering far too light and devoid of any feedback, but the BE11 comes on Giti tyres with precious little grip. It spins its wheels with very little provocation, and washes wide in corners if there’s even a soupcon of enthusiasm in your driving style.

Range – that important factor of any electric car – is okay, on the face of it. The standard-range car gets an official 248 miles between charges, the long-range, 304 miles. I saw about 220 miles indicated from the long-range car though, which isn’t good – and given the large size of the battery reflects a fairly dire efficiency figure.

And charging up afterwards won’t redeem the BE11, either. Skywell quotes a 45-minute DC charge time – already much longer than alternatives. Look more closely and you’ll see that’s quoted from 20-70%, instead of the 10-80% that’s become the accepted industry standard. At least three Kia EV6’s could top up from 10-80% in the time it would take the Skywel for the same charge.

So it’s crap to drive, has truly baffling software, looks like a generic car from an insurance advert, takes ages to charge and has almost zero safety equipment. It must be cheap, right? Er… no.

The standard range BE11 costs from £36,995. For that money you could have an excellent MG S5 EV and change. Or a Kia EV3 with 375 miles of range. Or a solid and practical Skoda Elroq.

The long-range model costs a whopping £39,995 – the starting price of the vastly superior Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Tesla Model 3.

If your sole priority is rear legroom (or perhaps bank robbery – nobody would be able to tell the police what the getaway car was) then the Skywell BE11 will be a good buy. No other EV for this price has anything approaching that level of rear legroom. But judged on every other factor, this is by some margin the worst car you can buy today.

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