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Oh. An Omoda. What’s that then? People ask me this even when the letters O M O D A are prominently spread across the proud snout of the latest entrant into the overcrowded SUV crossover segment.
More explication needed. It’s a Chery. No? OK, well, Chery is one of those Chinese car company giants that you’ve probably never heard of, rather like BYD or Great Wall, or FAW or Dongfeng, Geely, SAIC… As it happens, Chery is one of the smaller of the hundred flowers that the Chinese Communist Party lets bloom in the country’s burgeoning automotive sector, and builds “only” about 2.6 million vehicles a year, which is more than double the total UK figure.
The company, owned by the Chinese state, also has a joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover, owned by Tata of India, and the Korean Group KGM, formerly SsangYong. Somewhere in that mix another global automotive giant is gestating.
“Chery” is hardly a more familiar name to European car buyers than “Omoda”, and clearly they didn’t think it had much export potential – being a little reminiscent of the Datsun/Nissan Cherry from a past motoring age, and properly pronounced more like “sherry”.
“I drive a sherry” is indeed likely to provoke mirth; “I drive an Omoda”, less so. It’s one of those bland, globally inoffensive made-up names that the brand professionals invent, like Mondeo or Hobnobs, in an effort to avert the fate that befell the Toyota MR2 sports car when they tried to sell it in France, or the Mitsubishi Pajero in Spain (I’ll leave you to google those). Will it work?
The spec
Omoda 5 Comfort
Price: From £25,735
Engine capacity: 1.6l petrol, 4-cyl, 7sp auto
Power output (hp): 186
Top speed (mph): 121
0 to 60 (seconds): 7.9
Fuel economy (mpg): 31.4
CO2 emissions (WLTP, g/km): 170
The petrol-powered Omoda 5 and its all-electric sibling, the Omoda E5, will certainly do no harm to Chery’s industrial ambitions. I found both of them to be quite acceptable contemporary transport, albeit with a few interesting idiosyncrasies. The petrol vehicle in particular offers buyers a medium-sized SUV “crossover” that’s just as competent and competitive as anything else on the market.
The styling of this model is more distinctive than the utterly generic EV “face” of the E5, with a big but understated grille, like a Mercedes, Peugeot or Nissan. The rest of the Omoda is pretty standard – it’s a good-looking machine, but one that’s never going to stand out from the crowd. Given that the buying public like this sort of car to look a certain way, that’s a highly sensible move in one sense – no one is going to point and laugh at the “funny Chinese car” – but it also makes gaining profile more of a challenge. For those interested in such things, it’s a fine example of Hotelling’s law of minimum product differentiation (you’d best look that up as well).
This is also why it’s quite hard to write very much about the Omoda 5 and E5, as they both stack up well in terms of equipment, space and performance when set against their many competitors. There are some oddities though. The front and rear windscreen wipers, for example, are controlled by two thumb dials on the left-hand indicator stalk, which is not something I’ve experienced before.
The electric E5 also has a “pet mode” button, which will maintain an ambient temperature of 13C inside the car when the driver is absent and the vehicle locked. Tesla, I think, invented this particular indulgence with their “dog mode”, but the Omoda is less discriminatorily named. The touchscreen graphics are lighter and brighter than we’re used to, but otherwise the materials, fit and finish are all good, and both get full NCAP 5-star safety ratings.
Otherwise, it’s a matter of personal taste – buying an Omoda isn’t going to be a mistake (albeit longer-term durability is a bit of a “known unknown” – there’s a 7-year warranty in any case). The battery electric E5 is, for example, a little less efficient than the Peugeot electric e-2008 (284Wh/ml Vs 275Wh/ml), but the Omoda, with its beefier battery pack, is notably more spacious, brisker, and boasts the better real-world range – 185 miles vs 215 miles.
The striking Kia EV3 is funkier than either of them, and the Honda e:Ny1 promises outstandingly reliable quality. Every personal consumer priority is catered for if you care to look.
In terms of value, as I’ve noted before, the present state of the new car market, distorted by conflicting government mandates, means that the conventional rule that electric cars are invariably more expensive than their petrol equivalents no longer applies – and the more you shop around, through the likes of CarWow and even on the companies’ own websites, the more you can defy all sorts of conventions.
An EV can be cheaper both to buy and to run than its fossil-fuel counterpart. Indeed, this may be as good a time as any to go green, if only on financial grounds. The Omoda 5 and E5 are no more immune to discounting than any other mainstream make.
As with the previous incursions by the Japanese and Koreans, we should benefit from more competition and choice, and that’s why you should try an Omoda, be it petrol or electric. Then you’ll know what it is.
