Chery Tiggo 7 Review 2025

Not content with launching the UK's cheapest seven-seater SUV in the form of the Chery Tiggo 8, this Chinese carmaker has simultaneously launched it smaller sibling, with the plug-in hybrid version now being the cheapest such model on sale. Are there any obvious reasons why it's so much cheaper than anything else of a comparable size? Find out in our full Chery Tiggo 7 review. 

Chery Tiggo 7. It's not a great name, is it? It isn't just that it sounds like a counterfeit version of a character from Winnie the Pooh, there's also the issue of it not being particularly clear how one should pronounce either the brand or the car. Despite being derived from 'cheery', it's apparently pronounced 'cherry', while Tiggo is 'tee-go'.

All of this is giving the kind of deja Vu that would make a Matrix character freak out, because Chery already sells cars in the UK under its subbrands of Jaecoo (a portmanteau of the German word jaeger (that's hunter) and cool) and Omoda (a mash-up of oxygen and moda, the Italian modern). Right. 

Coming up with names for brands and cars, then, is not Chery's strong suit. Packing a lot of value into a car, however, is something it does very well. We've already seen that with Jaecoo and Omoda — now the Chery brand itself has landed in the UK with not one but two new models. 

The larger Chery Tiggo 8 is comfortably the UK's cheapest mid-size seven-seater SUV, so it's fitting that the smaller Chery Tiggo 7 has a 'UK's cheapest' accolade of its own. If specced as a Super Hybrid, it's the least expensive plug-in hybrid you can buy on these shores, costing under £30,000. 

The petrol-only Tiggo 7 looks like even more of a bargain, starting at around £25,000 but it's less appealing overall. It's powered by an engine that's thirsty according to its official consumption figures, although in reality it performs a bit better, nor does it benefit from the company car tax advantages of the PHEV. The Tiggo 7 also isn't that great to drive, with underwhelming ride and handling characteristics. 

That could be a problem when the Tiggo 7 has no shortage of rivals. At 4553mm long, it's about the same size as myriad family SUVs, including the Kia Sportage and its Hyundai Tucson cousin, the Nissan Qashqai and the Skoda Karoq. This is a corner of the market that's packed full of talented alternatives. 

The Chery Tiggo 7 undercuts the establishment by a significant amount though, coming in a much higher level of specification than you'd generally see with the cheaper versions of something like a Karoq or Qashqai. We suspect the value here will mean that many buyers should be happy to overlook the Chery's less positive aspects.

It also looks attractive, being neither too outlandish to put people off nor so bland that it'll end up being ignored. It also looks sufficiently different from related models badged Jaecoo and Omoda so as to hide their commonality.

Helping further entice buyers who've never heard of Chery before — it's a massive company in China but it'll be a new one for the average British car buyer — there's a reassuringly long warranty lasting seven years or 100,000 miles. The battery pack in the Super Hybrid enjoys the now-expected eight-year or 100,000-mile of separate coverage. 

Although we preferred driving the Chery Tiggo 7 to the bigger Tiggo 8, it's still a fair way from what we expect a car of this type to deliver in terms of the overall experience. The ride struggles to settle and the car often thumps and shudders over imperfections in the road surface. 

You might think that it's firmly set-up and thus stays quite flat when conering, but it doesn't — it leans quite a bit. The Chery also struggles even with the modest output of its engine, with the front wheels excitedly scrabbling for grip even under partial throttle and with the traction control system switched on.

The Tiggo 7 claws back some ground by being relatively refined, with wind and road noise kept to acceptable levels. 

There are two propulsion choices for the Chery Tiggo 7 — a 1.6-litre petrol with no electrical assistance and a 1.5-litre petrol-electric plug-in hybrid, both of which are shared with the larger Tiggo 8.

The 1.6-litre petrol engine produces 147PS and 275Nm, which is broadly in line with other entry-level versions of rival SUVs, as is its 9.4-second 0-62mph time. What's definitely not in line with those other cars is its aforementioned thirst, at least according to the official tests.

It doesn't feel sluggish getting up to the national speed limit but it does make quite a fuss on its way there, sounding coarser than a lot of other similarly powerful engines in rival cars. The gearbox also lacks finesse, particularly when setting off from a standing start, occasionally being a jerky experience. 

The answer to this underwhelming petrol engine could lie in the 1.5-litre Super Hybrid, which mixes the petrol engine with an electric motor. This setup has a total output of 204PS and 365Nm of torque, making for a 0-62mph time of 8.5 seconds. 

We haven't yet tried it in the Tiggo 7 but from our experiences of it in the Tiggo 8 we were similarly underwhelmed. The engine acts more like a generator to top up the battery, giving an EV-like driving experience. The throttle isn't very smooth and the brake pedal can be quite abrupt, the latter being a likely consequence of the regenerative action of the system. 

The Chery Tiggo 7 was awarded a four-star rating by Euro NCAP, broken down into 80% for adult occupants, 77% for children, 80% for vulnerable road users and 78% for its safety assistance systems.

The Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai, Skoda Karoq and many others in the class have all managed the full five stars. At least Chery can point out that the Tiggo 7 scored one star more than the similarly priced Dacia Bigster managed. 

As standard, the Tiggo 7 receives a comprehensive set of safety technologies including blind-spot detection, lane-keeping assistance, rear cross-traffic alert and braking, a driver attention monitor and autonomous emergency braking. There's also a 540-degree camera, which sounds like a typo, but it refers to the simulated underbody view generated from camera data. 

Like the Tiggo 8, all versions of the Chery Tiggo 7 are rated to tow braked loads of up to 1500kg. 

The Chery Tiggo 7's 484-litre boot is behind the norms for SUVs of this size lagging behind the near-600 litres offered by the Hyundai Tucson. It's also less than you get in the Nissan Qashqai, which has one of the smaller boots among these rivals.

The boot opening should make for easy loading and there are plenty of sizeable cubbies as well as decently sized door bins. The cabin feels roomy. 

After more practicality? It's not exactly a big jump in price to the Chery Tiggo 8, which has a much bigger boot and a third row of seats. Not that you get to use both of those things at the same time. 

The big surprise given the Chery Tiggo 7's ultra-low price is just how plush it feels inside and how well finished it is on the whole.

The comparison between the Tiggo 7 and the very similarly priced Dacia Bigster is stark, with the latter feeling bargain basement in comparison, with much more in the way of hard plastics, albeit with rugged build quality. The Chery instead has a pleasing array of soft-touch surfaces and it's only lower down in the cabin, well below your eyeline, that materials start feeling cheaper. 

The Chery Tiggo 7's cabin takes the now very common approach of housing an infotainment touchscreen — a 12.3-inch unit in this case — plus a digital instrument cluster of a similar size in one big panel, spanning much of the dashboard. Both are simple in terms of graphic design but look bright and sharp.

It's also pleasing to see that a simple swipe down from the top of the infotainment screen brings up all the shortcuts to deactivate the various safety assistance systems. That's ideal if you'd rather not have the speed limit warning bonging at you in the likely event the car has got the limit lower than it should actually be.

Unlike the larger screen in the Chery Tiggo 8, here it doesn't have to be used for climate functions. Instead, there's a touch-sensitive bar just underneath the screen for those. It's not as easy to use as proper, physical buttons, particularly when you're on the move. 

The upgraded Sony audio system sounds great, which is very welcome, especially considering just how cheap the Chery Tiggo 7 is. 

The Chgery Tiggo 7's attention-grabbing £24,995 price gets you into an Aspire specification model with the 1.6-litre petrol engine. That looks especially tempting when the likes of the Hyundai Tucson and Skoda Karoq are over £30,000 in their cheapest guises, but as you will read further down there's a caveat to this entry-level model relating to its fuel economy. 

That starting figure is within a few quid of the Dacia Bigster, which is more practical, more economical and — unlike most SUVs of this size — actually has some off-road ability. It feels more bargain basement inside than the Chery and doesn't have the same level of technology.

The standard spec of the Chery Tiggo 7 Aspire is decent but if you're after more, there's the Summit trim to consider for £27,995. Meanwhile, the Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid Aspire is £29,995, some £10,000 less than a Hyundai Tucson PHEV and cheaper even than the MG HS PHEV — formerly the cheapest plug-in hybrid available in the UK. It's £32,995 in Summit trim. 

For many, those list prices for the Super Hybrid versions of the Chery Tiggo 7 won't be all that relevant, as they'll be grabbing the keys via a company car scheme, taking advantage of its 9% Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax rate. 

It's a good job you'll be saving so much money on the up-front cost of buying a Tiggo 7 as your wallet will get a clobbering at the pumps. The claimed fuel economy for the entry-level petrol engine is 32.7mpg which is a surprise considering the same engine in the larger, heavier Tiggo 8 is rated for 36.2mpg.

We're still not entirely sure what the reason is for the difference but we did manage to beat that lowly figure quite easily, averaging around 35mpg with a mix of driving. You will struggle to get near the efficiency of a Skoda Kodiaq 1.5 TSI but we reckon above 40mpg on a long, gentle run might just be possible. 

Like all plug-in hybrids, the Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid gets a very unhelpful official figure of 256.8mpg. That's not the fault of Chery — the current WLTP procedure for obtaining fuel efficiency figures simply doesn't work that well for PHEVs. To achieve anything like it, you'll need to spend almost all of the journey relying on the car's high-voltage battery pack.

Vehicle tax is now charged at a flat rate of £195 for all vehicles from year two of ownership, with the token £10 discount for alternatively fueled vehicles dropped in April 2025. All versions of the Tiggo 7 are comfortably under the £40,000 threshold for the Expensive Car Supplement, something which can't be said of most of the Chery's rivals. 

Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid: Range and charging

Depending on your typical journeys, the decent electric-only range of 56 miles provided by the Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid's 18.4kWh battery pack may mean you rarely wake the petrol engine up at all. 

There are two trim levels available across the Chery Tiggo 7 range – Aspire and Summit. 

Standard equipment for the Chery Tiggo 7 Aspire includes: 

• 18-inch alloy wheels
• LED lights front and rear
• Six-way electrically adjustable driver's seat
• 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster
• 12.3-inch infotainment screen
• Dual-zone climate control
• Rear parking camera

Upgrading to the Chery Tiggo 7 Summit adds the following equipment:

• 19-inch alloy wheels  
• Heated and ventilated front seats
• Electrically adjustable front passenger seat
• Wireless phone charging pad
• Electrically operated tailgate
• Eight-speaker Sony sound system
• Panoramic sunroof
• 540-degree panoramic camera