Chery Tiggo 8 (2025) Review

Introduction

Yes, yet another Chinese brand has entered the UK motor market – and the list keeps on growing.

BYD, XPeng, Ora, Leapmotor, Omoda and Jaecoo are just a handful of the names that have appeared on British shores over the last year or two. But it’s the last two that give clues as to this latest brand’s origins.

Chery is the parent company, owning both Omoda and Jaecoo, both of which have already launched vehicles over here. But its owner is ready to enter the party, too, under its own brand-name. With that, a range of vehicles known as ‘Tiggo’ is entering the British market, starting with the Tiggo 7 mid-size SUV, and the larger seven-seater, the Tiggo 8.

A smaller compact-crossover Tiggo 4, and a large SUV, the Tiggo 9, are also due soon, with the latter becoming the brand's flagship.

It is the Chery Tiggo 8 we’re looking at today, though. It aims to undercut nearly all its foes – most seven-seater SUVs have a starting price of around £35,000 and above, with many breaking the £40,000 and even £50,000 mark. Yet this fairly large seven-seater SUV is available from just £28,500 – a price most competitors can’t get near. And, as you’re here to lease it, the car will seem even more of a bargain to you.

Does that mean the Chery is cheap and tacky, or has the Chinese manufacturer somehow found a way to produce a quality car at a super-affordable price? We have taken one for a test drive to put it through its paces.

At A Glance

The Chery Tiggo 8 certainly doesn’t look out of place when you see it. It may be Chinese, but its designers have clearly been studying European rivals carefully.

The front appears to take inspiration from Audi, whose open-mouthed front grille and slightly diagonally pointed headlights can be found on the Tiggo 8, albeit not exactly like-for-like. There is some shapely shiny black bodywork beneath it, with chiselled cheekbones out to the sides, as well as a strip of silver running underneath. It is reasonably aggressive, without being overly sporty.

Out to the sides, it’s more modest, with a crease running above the pop-out door handles, and a sizeable indentation in the lower part of the doors, while dark grey cladding sits around its outer edges, including curving around the wheel arches. The rear features a lightbar spanning the full width of the boot, thickening at each side to accommodate indicators and reversing lights.

The back bodywork then compresses inwards towards the middle, accommodating the number plate. At the same time, wide single exhausts sit on each side of the car towards the bottom, housed within a grey-painted diffuser-shaped unit.

It is quite a nice-looking car, overall.

There is not much to distinguish it from any of its adversaries, but if you're worried that leasing a Chinese car is going to leave you with a ghastly monstrosity, any concerns should evaporate when you see it.

Key Features

The Tiggo 8 is offered in just two trim levels, partly because even the entry-level model is very well equipped.

Aspire trim comes with 19-inch alloy wheels, a 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, DAB radio, satellite navigation, voice control, and a 10.25-inch digital instrument display. You also get six-way power adjustment for the driver’s seat, LED headlights and taillights, a wireless phone charger and a 540-degree panoramic view camera, which we’ll explain later on.

The upper trim, Summit, adds several additional luxuries, including four-way powered adjustment in the passenger seat, a heated wheel, heated and vented front and middle row seats, and a massage function in the front seats. You also get a heads-up display and a 12-speaker Sony audio system.

Like the smaller Tiggo 7, the Tiggo 8 is available in petrol-only and plug-in hybrid form, the latter called the Super Hybrid. The former comes with a 1.6-litre petrol engine producing 147PS, while the Super Hybrid gets a slightly smaller 1.5-litre petrol unit connected to an electric motor, producing a total of 204PS.

Range & Batteries

The Tiggo 8 claims an all-electric range of 56 miles, although you’ll likely not achieve this in practice, especially if you're carrying passengers or lots of cargo. Electric power comes in the form of an 18.4kWh battery.  Chery says the total range of the Super Hybrid with a full tank of fuel is an impressive 745 miles.

Performance & Drive

The 1.5-litre engine had a surprising amount of poke in the Tiggo 7, and its characteristics are much the same here. However, given that the Tiggo 8 is a larger vehicle, the non-hybrid will be more noticeably compromised by the car’s additional weight over its smaller sibling. As a result, while it might suffice for solo journeys, it’ll likely be frustrating for most if you’re regularly driving it with all seven seats occupied.

The Super Hybrid seems the preferable option, then, with the additional power of the electric motor cutting the non-hybrid's 9.8-second 0-62mph time down to 8.5 seconds. However, both are perfectly acceptable in what's a reasonably large car. Acceleration in the Super Hybrid, though, feels brisk and is instantly delivered. It is adept at using its electric motor on its own, without the engine on at all, even when travelling all the way up to motorway speeds.

When the combustion unit is called into action, the transition is seamless and barely noticeable. The transmission is less successful, as it can seem to have a mind of its own at times, changing up when you don't want it to, despite being quick to change down when the throttle is floored. However, while both it and the engine lack refinement, neither is terrible, and neither should be a dealbreaker.

The Tiggo 8 isn’t great around corners, but then big-ish SUVs rarely are. That said, it’s clear the Tiggo 8 is built with comfort in mind, rather than handling, and very few can ever claim to be good at delivering on both fronts. Around faster bends, there’s a noticeable amount of body roll – more so than its rivals – not helped by the very light steering, which lacks any sense of feel and offers barely any feedback through the wheel as a result. This makes it tricky to place around corners. There is a Sport mode, which firms up the steering, but it’s hardly transformational.

The Tiggo 8 feels very soft, which makes it good at soaking up lumps and bumps on poor-quality road surfaces. However, it can feel unsettled when the going gets tough, and it takes a while to plant itself again afterwards.

Wind and road noise are well-contained thanks to decent soundproofing and double-glazed windows, while the brake regeneration is reasonably smooth, though it can feel inconsistent at lower speeds. The ferocity of the regen braking can be adjusted via the infotainment screen.

Charging

The Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid can charge at a maximum rate of 40kW DC. That means a 30-80% top-up of its batteries takes around 20 minutes. Charging from 0-100% using an AC home wallbox takes approximately three hours, with charging speeds limited to 6.6kW.

Running Costs & Emissions

The non-hybrid manages 36mpg, emitting 177g/km of CO2, neither of which is especially impressive.

The Super Hybrid, on the other hand, does up to 235mpg, producing 31g/km of CO2. The latter is undoubtedly the choice if you're looking for a company car, thanks to its high 56-mile all-electric range, which places it in the fourth lowest Benefit In Kind tax bracket, the 9% band, this year.

Road tax costs £2,190 and £110 respectively for the first year, with both costing £195-a-year thereafter, subject to annual tax increases.

Given that Chery is a new brand to the British Isles, it's challenging to gauge reliability, and a clearer picture won't emerge for several years yet. Nevertheless, a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty is included on all models for additional peace of mind. You won't need that if you're leasing with us, though!

Interior & Technology

The Chery Tiggo 8 has a very nicely designed cabin, which really does it justice. The bold, flat-bottomed steering wheel is nice to hold and features touch-sensitive multifunction buttons on the nine and three o'clock spokes, along with a double six o’clock spoke.

The layered dashboard, like much of the rest of the interior, is pleasant to touch, featuring upmarket, soft materials, and cheaper, thin plastics are largely absent, with the few that are present hidden out of view. Even the buttons feel nice to push and well-damped, while everything feels solidly screwed together with little compromise.

The centre console rises to connect seamlessly with the dashboard, which features a very posh-looking 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen perched on it like a tablet. The screen is crisp and clear, with attractive graphics reminiscent of smartphone operating systems, and it’s responsive to touches, prods, and swipes of your fingers, though it did lag once or twice. The system is nice to use, if a tad overcomplicated, so the layout takes a bit of time to get used to, but there are far worse ones on the automotive market.

Unlike in the smaller Chery 7, which houses both screens in one unit, the digital instruments are separate, on a smaller 10.25-inch display. The graphics are similarly clear and attractive, displaying plenty of helpful information, most of it at a size big enough to read easily on the move. However, the layout isn't exceptionally customisable.

If Chery has cut corners to keep the vehicle’s price down, there’s very little evidence of it in the cabin. 

Practicality & Boot Space

All versions of the Chery Tiggo 8 come with a six-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat, while the passenger seat also gets four-way electronic adjustment in the higher trim. The driving position is pleasingly high up, too, as you’d expect in a reasonably large SUV. This means looking out through the windscreen provides excellent forward visibility, helped by the front pillars being kept reasonably thin. The rearward view isn’t quite as generous, as although the rear pillars aren’t enormous, the black border surrounding the back windscreen is very thick, which limits your over-the-shoulder visibility.

Thankfully, front and rear parking sensors are included as standard, along with the 540-degree surround-view camera on both trim levels. It is called '540-degrees' because the technology generates an image on the cabin screen that makes the car appear invisible, allowing you to see obstacles through its body. As you’d expect from a fairly hefty SUV, even taller drivers won’t be short-changed for headroom, legroom or shoulder space, and the cabin is plenty wide enough for two adults to sit comfortably together up front.

In the middle row, it's even more impressive, offering really decent headroom and lots of legroom, especially if the seats are slid back. You can comfortably carry two adults and a child in the middle seat, while three grownups won't feel too cramped sitting next to each other on a longer journey. The middle seat is narrower and slightly raised compared with the outer seats. The middle seats only fold in a 60:40, rather than the more convenient 40:20:40, configuration. 

The third row isn’t as nice, with headroom somewhat compromised, while the amount of legroom depends on how far forward - or backwards - the middle row seats are. It is certainly not bad, though, and a couple of kids in the rearmost seats should be fine.

Boot space measures just 117 litres if all seven seats are in place – it’s not all that bad by most seven-seater standards, but still heavily limited. This expands to 494 litres with the rearmost seats folded down, while folding the middle row of seats down reveals a much larger 1,930 litres of carrying capacity.

There is a decent amount of interior storage in the cabin, including a couple of cupholders in the front, two slots to rest your smartphone (one of which offers wireless charging) and a cooled cubby in the centre console. The glove compartment is a good size, although the door bins aren’t the most generous, but we’ve seen worse.

Safety

The Chery Tiggo 8 earned a four-star rating recently when assessed by crash-testing boffins in white coats at Euro NCAP. Chery will likely be disappointed with that, given that it hoped to earn the full five-star rating, as most car manufacturers can achieve it nowadays, especially in larger vehicles.

It scored 81% for adults, 77% for children and 78% for safety assists. The latter category includes a glut of features, as part of Chery’s 14-point ADAS (advanced driver assistance system), including automatic emergency braking, blind-spot detection, adaptive cruise control, and integrated cruise assist.

You also get emergency lane keeping, lane departure warning and prevention, front collision warning, rear cross traffic alert, traffic braking, traffic jam assist, as well as a driver monitoring system.  Front and rear parking sensors and a ‘540-degree’ surround-view camera are included on all models.

Options

There aren’t any optional extras available on the Chery Tiggo 8. You can choose the body colour, though – ‘arctic’ white is the default shade, with light ‘reef’ blue, dark ‘forest’ green, ‘midnight’ black, and dark ‘fossil’ grey costing a few hundred pounds extra.

Rival Cars

There are plenty of rival seven-seater SUVs out there.

There is the Dacia Jogger, Kia Sorento, KGM (formerly SsangYong) Rexton, Peugeot 5008, and Skoda Kodiaq. The Hyundai Santa Fe and Nissan X-Trail are also worth shortlisting.

At the premium end of the market, the Mercedes-Benz GLB is the only one that can get even moderately close to the Chery. And, even then, that's a bit of a stretch given the entry-level model is more expensive than the Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid’s top trim.  BMW has the X5, while Audi offers the X7, but both are double the price of the Chery.

Verdict & Next Steps

The Tiggo 8 isn’t perfect, but it’s clear that Chery has hit the ground running in its first own-branded attempt at the UK market. It is very spacious, practical and, at least in Super Hybrid form, very economical.

Neither the non-hybrid nor the Super Hybrid powertrains are brilliant, but they’re not bad. They will suit plenty of people who aren’t necessarily looking for thrills, given the driving experience isn’t particularly engaging thanks to light steering and unremarkable handling.

Generous equipment levels, including plenty of luxuries in the upper Summit trim, really make it a tempting lease. The lovely interior, which looks sophisticated and upmarket, only strengthens the argument, combined with a very low list price for a vehicle in this class. The Chery Tiggo 8 Super Hybrid in the top trim is the most expensive option, but we believe it’s the best one to go for – and even then, it still undercuts its foes by some margin.

Where to next?

View latest Chery Tiggo 8 deals- from just £288.29 per month inc VAT**.

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**Score based on Select’s unique meta score analysis, taking into account the UK’s top leading independent car website reviews of the Chery Tiggo 8

**Correct as of 22/09/2025. Based on 9 months initial payment, 5,000 miles annually, over a 48 month lease. Initial payment equivalent to 9 monthly payments, or £2,594.61 (Plus admin fee) Ts and Cs apply. Credit is subject to status.