What sent me down this road so to say, was that almost every other car we road test these days seems to be a Chinese SUV.
Our long-term MG ZS had just been returned when the Geely E5 EM-i arrived. And then, as it was leaving, a Lepas L4 arrived. This will in turn be swapped with a Changan Uni-S.
This doesn’t mean there is anything inherently wrong with them. In fact, most of them offer great value for money with an exceptionally high level of spec. It just means you have way too much choice when it comes to purchase time in my opinion.
Barely a year ago, being a new energy vehicle offering, be it hybrid or plug-in hybrid, would have made you a little unique in the market. But now almost everybody is offering new energy solutions.
Competitive pricing
This all said though, retailing for a suggested R679 999, the Geely E5 EM-i is not the cheapest, nor is it the most expensive. I had a quick look down a long list of competitors. And everybody has something they want you to look at in this price range.
From BAI to BYD, to Chery, GWM, Jaecoo, Omoda, Jetour, GAC, Leapmotor and everything in between, you have options. The best summary I could come up with is that the Geely E5 EM-i is competitively priced smack bang in the middle of a very congested segment of the market.
What you want and don’t want
As to be expected, at the price point the Geely E5 EM-i offers you all the luxury and spec you could want and then some things you don’t. The advanced driver assistance systems work well in theory but were far too intrusive for my liking.
I have never come across a lane keeping assist function that was so aggressive that it almost yanked the steering wheel out of my hand. I couldn’t wait to switch some of these features off, but only for them all to come back as soon as the car was switched on each time. It drove me insane.
Adequate performance
The Geely E5 EM-i is powered by a 1.5 litre naturally aspirated engine combined with an 18.4kWh battery that drives an electric motor hooked up to the front axle. The combined output of the two is a claimed 160kW of power and 262 Nmof torque.
With the 0-100km/h sprint taking 8.51 seconds as tested and the top speed coming in at 175km/h, one would say that the on-road performance is adequate. Why? Because there are more powerful choices out there with some of the competitors making use of turbocharged powerplants.
A winner at the fuel pumps
While the likes of Chery’s Tiggo Cross SHS and Omoda’s C5 SHS might produce the same power and offer similar performance, the benefit of the Geely E5 EM-i being a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) is that you can rely purely on electricity to power the car and not the combustion engine as in this case.
Geely claima a range of 943km from a 50 litre tank of fuel. But because I made use of overnight charging at home I got a range of about 80km each time before the car started using fuel. Treating it like an EV saw me get substantially better than the claimed fuel consumption.
Strange charging set-up
What was a bit weird though is that once you ran the battery down, you could not use the car’s combustion engine to charge the battery while on the move. You either plugged it in and charged it, or you could park it and hit a button.
Then the car would idle and charge the battery up to a maximum of 85%. But at over R25 per litre of fuel I didn’t think this was the most efficient way to charge it. Paying R4 per kWh for electricity makes much more sense.
Nothing new
There is no easy way to say this. The Geely E5 EM-i is a solid SUV offering but it doesn’t offer anything that you can’t already get at a similar or better price point. I suggest, as I always do, go take one for a test drive and make your own mind up.
