Chery Tiggo 8 Review 2025

After successfully courting UK buyers with its Jaecoo and Omoda offshoots, Chery has arrived on these shores with a couple of cars under its own brand. The one we're looking at here is the Tiggo 8, a seven-seater SUV that undercuts some established players by more than £10,000. But is it a case of 'you get what you pay for'? Find out in our full Chery Tiggo 8 review. 

You'd be forgiven for losing track of all the Chinese car brands to have launched in the UK over the last few years. It's hard to know which ones to really take seriously but Chery certainly seems to be one that shoud catch your attention. Much like BYD when it was first launched in the UK, Chery is an unknown here but massive in its native country as well as selling a huge number of cars around the world.  

In 2024, Chery sold over 2.6 million cars, the majority of those going to the domestic market. It sold over a million internationally, however, and the company will no doubt be hoping that number's even bigger in 2025, helped by cracking new markets like the UK. 

Chery already already has a presence in the UK, under the guise of its sub-brands Jaecoo and Omoda, with with mixed results. In fact, an updated version of the Omoda 5 has already been revealed for the UK with various improvements that hopefully address early criticisms of the initial version. We would have hoped that the Chery Tiggo 8 cuts the mustard straight out of the box but there are still a fair few sub-par elements. 

It certainly scores well in terms of practicality, considering that it's a seven-seater SUV with a £28,545 starting price. The cheapest Skoda Kodiaq is £10,000 more and isn't as well-equipped, although the Czech car offers more boot space at 340 litres with all seats in place, compared with a mere 117 litres in the Chery. The gap narrows once the third-row is stowed and both cars are similarly cavernous with the second row folded as well.

The Chery Tigo 8's interior features a minimalistic dashboard dominated by a massive tablet-style infotainment touchscreen. It's a good job it's big as you'll need to use it for various functions, including adjusting climate settings. It's joined by a smaller digital instrument cluster. 

The engine line-up is simple, consisting only of a pure petrol and a plug-in hybrid. The petrol offers adequate performance but its fuel economy is well below various rivals according to the official figures, albeit better in real life than the numbers suggest. The PHEV option is quite a bit more powerful and offers a useful electric-only driving range from its decent-sized battery pack.

At 4725mm long, the Tiggo 8 comes up a little shorter than the Skoda Kodiaq and the Peugeot 5008, while the Hyundai Santa Fe is positively ginormous alongside it. In terms of styling, it doesn't offer anything particularly outlandish, but it's not bland either. It's very much what you'd expect for a mid-2020s SUV and certainly won't scare anyone off. There are plenty of smart-looking features such as the slim LED headlights and a snazzy light bar stretching across the rear. 

It's when you drive the Chery Tiggo 8 that one element of 'you get what you pay for' creeps in. The ride and handling simply aren't as good as the more expensive mainstream competition, while the plug-in hybrid system feels in need of finessing. There's a strange feeling to the throttle pedal and the brakes are grabby, presumably due to the regenerative braking system. 

Even with these issues aside, opting for what is still a little-known brand in the UK will be a daunting prospect, so it helps that Chery is offering a strong warranty on its cars here, lasting seven years or 100,000 miles. The high-voltage battery in the PHEV has its own coverage lasting for eight years or 100,000 miles. 

Factor-in the low purchase price and high level of standard specification, and we suspect Chery will have no issues finding buyers for the Tiggo 8 despite those foibles, as has already been the case with the cars of Jaecoo and Omoda. Whether the value overrides the less-than-brilliant driving experience can only be decided by you, but the low price of entry is certainly hard to ignore.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Chery is pronounced the same way you would the fruit of a similar spelling — despite being derived from 'cheery' — while Tiggo is, apparently, 'Tee-go'. Glad we cleared that up.

This is the biggest compromise of all associated with the Chery Tiggo 8. There's slow, vague-feeling steering and the car always seems like it's taking a moment or two to react to your inputs. There's quite a bit of roll from what feels like softly set-up suspension, which you think might make for a smooth ride but the car thuds and shakes over imperfections in the road. 

We're not expecting the average Tiggo 8 owner to drive theirs particularly hard down a country road but should they fancy it, they'll find that grip is modest. The front wheels also struggle to contain the full output of the plug-in hybrid drive system, with the car wheel-spinning off the line even with the traction control on. 

It's also very difficult to modulate the brakes when pulling up to a standstill. The initial part of the pedal travel doesn't do a great deal until suddenly the brakes will bite, bringing you to a jerky stop.

On the plus side, refinement is decent, with wind and road noise well-suppressed. 

There's the choice of two drive system options for the Chery Tiggo 8 — a 1.6-litre petrol and a 1.5-litre petrol paried with plug-in hybrid assistance.

The 147PS and 275Nm of torque offered up by the petrol-only version don't sound spectacular but they're roughly the same as the 1.5-litre in the cheaper Skoda Kodiaq models. Its 0-62mph time is also very similar at 9.8 seconds, while the top speed is 118mph. 

The Super Hybrid uses a different, 1.5-litre petrol with an 18.4kWh battery pack and an electric motor for a total of 204PS and 365Nm of torque. That battery adds a lot of weight but the increase in power is enough to lower the 0-62mph time to a respectable 8.5 seconds. Its top speed is 112mph. 

Straight-line performance in the Chery Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid feels brisk enough. The engine acts more like a generator, with a powerful electric motor providing the propulsion, which you might hope makes for a relaxing, EV-like driving experience as found in the Nissan X-Trail ePower. When the engine is called into action, the noise it makes isn't intrusive. 

However, the throttle feels odd with a lengthy delay between putting your foot down and anything happening — once you are on your way the pedal is very sensitive to your inputs. Yet when you lift off, there's a disconcerting feeling of the car continuing to accelerate momentarily.

We're so used to five-star Euro NCAP ratings that the four-star result for the Chery Tiggo 8 might raise an eyebrow but it's not the only current seven-seater SUV to miss out on the full five stars. The Hyundai Santa Fe and Peugeot 5008 are also rated at four stars, while the Skoda Kodiaq and the Volkswagen Tayron each achieved five stars.

In any case, the Tiggo 8's four-star rating is certainly a lot better than another cheap seven-seater, the Dacia Jogger, which could only muster a single star. Its score was dragged down by poor ratings in the vulnerable road users and safety assist systems categories.  The Tiggo 8 was rated relatively well for such technology, managing 78%.

As standard, the Chery features lane assistance, autonomous emergency braking, rear cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise control and a 540-degree camera which provides a generated view under the car as well as all around it.

We found the lane assistance feature to be very overactive, intervening frequently when it didn't need to, and making the steering feel quite unpleasant. Thankfully, it can be easily turned off by simply swiping down from the top of the main screen and pressing one button.

All versions of the Chery Tiggo 8 are rated to tow braked trailers weighing up to 1500kg.

Much like the Hyundai Santa Fe, the Chery Tiggo 8's boot space with all seven seats in place is pitiful, with just 117 litres on offer. Others in the class do much better, with the Peugeot 5008 managing 348 litres, just ahead of the Skoda Kodiaq's 340 litres.

Things get much more competitive once the third row is folded, opening up 739 litres of space. That's still some way behind the Peugeot and Skoda, which provide 916 and 845 litres respectively when similarly configured. With the middle row folded in the Tiggo 8 as well, there's a total of 1930 litres available. 

Legroom for those in the middle row is decent and less than brilliant in the third row. Given you'll struggle to slot a bulky, modern child seat into one of the rearmost seats, they're only really suitable for bigger kids and petite adults — anyone else will struggle to get in them. 

It's a similar story with other seven-seaters of the same size and Chery is keen to set realistic expectations, referring to the Tiggo 8 as a 5+2-seater. 

There's a premium feeling to the cabin that doesn't tally with the rock-bottom price of the Chery Tiggo 8. Soft-touch materials are found in abundance and everything seems to be out together very well.

It's only at the lower levels of its interior that you'll start to find cheaper bits of trim, although it's not like you'll be feeling around there particularly often.

All versions of the Chery Tiggo 8 get am impressive looking 15.6-inch multimedia touchscreen setup. It's a tablet-style display that's positioned forwards of the dashboard, making it look a little perilous but it's plenty sturdy. Plus this placement makes it easy to reach while driving

The screen quality is great and it responds well to touch but it can be fiddly to use, particularly in conjunction with the smartphone connectivity. It doesn't help that you need to use it for climate control functions especially when the shortcut panel at the bottom of the screen for adjusting temperatures vanishes when running Apple CarPlay.

Yes, you can swipe up from the bottom to bring it back again but that's an extra level of driving distraction you could do without. If you want to change the fan speed you need to bring up a completely different window, forcing you to navigate back to the phone connectivity pane to bring that back into operation. 

The attention-grabbing £28,545 starting point is for a Chery Tiggo 8 Aspire with a petrol engine. That's around £10,000 less than mid-size seven-seater SUVs such as the Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008, which are fairly basic in their entry-level trims, as well as being cheaper than van-based MPVs that seat seven, including the Ford Grand Tourneo Connect.

The only way to seat seven for less in a new car is with either the Dacia Jogger, which is a more bargain-basement feeling proposition and isn't as practical as the Chery, or with either of the Citroen C3 Aircross and Vauxhall Frontera cousins, both of which are considerably smaller than the Tiggo 8.

The Summit version of the petrol Tiggo 8 is hardly expensive either at £31,545. It could also be worth keeping an eye out for discounts — we've seen a fair bit of money lopped off the products of sub-brands Omoda and Jaecoo, so it might be the same case here. 

The Chery Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid looks like a stronger choice and it comes in at £33,545 in Aspire trim. Again, that's about £10,000 lower than a similarly-sized PHEV from more established brands. Upgrade to the Summit version and that increases to £36,545.

Fuel economy looks is poor compared with the Skoda Kodiaq and most other options among seven-seater SUVs, with the Chery Tiggo 8 mustering a WLTP Combined cycle figure of just 36.2mpg. We'd have hoped for something in the low 40s and least. That number does seem fairly pessimistic based on our test of the smaller Chery Tiggo 7 using the same engine. 

It's not the one to go for if you're on a company car scheme, with the PHEV-equipped Tiggo 8 delivering a healthy electric-only that in turn gives the Super Hybrid versions a favourable Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax rate of 9%. 

The plug-in hybrid goes the other way with the kind of wildly optimistic fuel efficiency claims we're used to from such vehicles. It's 235mpg, a number you'll only achieve with extremely limited running of the engine element of the system. 

You'll also likely struggle to comprehend the two different fuel efficiency figures the Tiggo 8 gives you — this was explained to us by a Chery spokesperson but we still don't get it. Also, the readouts only apply to the last 31 miles you've driven which isn't helpful for keeping tabs on long-term efficiency.

With the token £10 discount for 'alternatively fueled vehicles' binned-off as of April 2025, the annual Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) bill is the same on both Tiggo 8s at £195. All versions are comfortably under the £40,000 threshold for the Expensive Car Supplement — often referred to as the premium car tax — so escapes the surcharge levied on all but the most basic versions of its better-established rivals. 

Chery Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid: Range and charging

In any case, an electric-only range of 56 miles for the Chery Tiggo 8 Suer Hybrid should mean that for a lot of journeys, the petrol engine won't have to cough into life at all. The total range is an impressive 745 miles.

It makes little financial sense to use a public rapid charger with the Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid, but should you wish to do so, a 30-80% charge is possible in 20 minutes thanks to 40kW DC capability.

The Chery Tiggo 8 is available in two different trim levels — Aspire and Summit.

The Chery Tiggo 8 Aspire has the following equipment fitted as standard:

• 19-inch alloy wheels 
• Heated front seats
• LED headlights
• Electrically adjustable driver's seat
• Front and rear parking sensors 
• Dual-zone climate control 
• 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster
• 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen
• Wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity
• Cooled wireless charger
• 540-degree surround view camera 
• Adaptive cruise control

The Chery Tiggo 8 Summit adds:

• 12-speaker Sony sound system
• Panoramic sunroof 
• Interior ambient lighting
• Hands-free electric tailgate
• Electrically adjustable, heated and ventilated front seats with massage function
• Heated outer second-row seats
• Heated steering wheel
• Head-up display