GWM Haval Jolion Pro Review

Introduction

What the haval is a Haval, we hear you say, with one eyebrow raised?

Yes, it's yet another Chinese brand hoping to make it big in the UK.

BYD, Leapmotor, Jaecoo, Omoda, Ora, Skywell, and XPeng are already here.

In fact, where Ora is concerned, Haval is a sister brand.

They are both owned by Great Wall Motor – GWM – which traces its routes back to 1984.

Many Chinese marques have obscure origins, and GWM is no exception. It was originally set up to repair tractors and other agricultural vehicles.

Yet here it is in the UK, hoping to take on all sorts of established manufacturers.

The car in question is the Haval Jolion Pro.

The name sounds a bit strange, but sister company Ora's all-electric supermini, the 03, was originally known as the Funky Cat.

The word ‘Jolion’ means ‘first love’, apparently.

We will see how much we love it after we’ve taken it for a spin.

At A Glance

One thing that’s clear about the Jolion Pro is that its appearance depends entirely on the angle from which you view it.

From the front, it looks reasonably menacing. A large grille filled with horizontal chrome spokes is surrounded by curved bodywork that creates a shapely lip below.

Day running light strips flank wide air intakes, too.

However, the car’s presence is compromised by the odd rectangular Haval badge smack bang in the upper middle of the grille.

Around the sides, it's okay, with an indentation and horizontal creases low down. However, the wheel arches leave a huge amount of space between the bodywork and the tyres, and the wheels are too far inside the arch itself.

We swear Haval has fitted the wrong alloys to it – they need to be at least an inch or two wider and probably several inches larger.

At the rear, there’s a low-hanging roof spoiler, which also looks out of place, a thick horizontal light bar, while a ‘G W M’ badge is squeezed between the bar and the number plate.

Two fake large exhaust tips sit in the shaped black cladding at the bottom, while the bodywork sprawls out slightly at the sides as if creating another couple of air intakes.

For some reason, the front and rear number plates are also large and very thick - something else that looks odd.

Overall, it’s a strange combination, with the front looking sophisticated (minus the badge), the side looking very unassuming, and the rear almost looking like Haval has tried to turn it into a hot hatch.

It seems a bit messy and lacks any stand-out features.

There is nothing wrong with fitting in with the crowd, especially for a new manufacturer that might want to err on the conservative side for now – and, in isolation, there’s little wrong with how each bit of the car looks per se, apart from a few little oddities.

But the design feels inconsistent, suggesting Haval is trying to appeal to everyone at once - and it doesn't quite work.

We can’t get over how weird those wheels look.

Key Features

The Haval Jolion Pro is available in three trim levels.

The entry-level Premium gets 17-inch alloys, a 10.25-inch infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, voice recognition, four speakers, keyless entry, a seven-inch digital instrument display, and dual-zone climate control.

Automatic wipers, rear parking sensors, and a USB port for the front dash camera (albeit without the camera itself) are also included, along with a suite of safety assistance features, which we’ll cover later.

Mid-level Lux gets 18-inch alloys, six speakers, a six-way electrically adjustable driver's seat, heated front seats, a leatherette steering wheel, a larger 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen, rear privacy glass, power-folding mirrors, and automatic LED headlights.

You also get a 360-degree camera and upgraded (in other words, two extra) rear parking sensors.

The top-of-the-range Ultra gets roof rails, a panoramic sliding sunroof (which can be opened via voice control), a wireless phone charger, a four-way electrically adjustable front passenger seat, a ventilated driver's seat, and a head-up display.

You also get a function on the key fob to close any open windows, plus auto parking assist, multicolour ambient lighting and front parking sensors.

All in all, that's quite a decent equipment list, although the price jump between each trim level is considerably more than we had expected.

The inclusion of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is welcome, but they're only wired systems - there is no wireless connectivity.

There is also no DAB radio, a rare and surprising omission nowadays.

Power on all models comes from a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine connected to a small electric motor.

It is effectively a self-charging hybrid, as you don't need to plug the Jolion Pro in.

However, like Nissan's e-POWER range, the Jolion Pro's engine acts as a generator most of the time to top up the car's small battery, and the electric motor does most of the driving.

Unlike the e-POWER range, though, when the battery is flat, the engine can take over and drive the front wheels.

In total, the powertrain outputs 189PS, which is reasonable.

Performance & Drive

The Haval Jolion Pro manages 0-62mph in 9.0 seconds flat.

We would have possibly expected it to be a little quicker, but that’s not a bad figure and should be adequate for most people’s needs – it is a reasonably big car, after all.

It is fitted with a two-speed gearbox, which Haval calls a 'dedicated hybrid transmission'. It automatically switches the engine between 'generator' and 'driving' modes.

Unfortunately, the engine isn’t great.

It is loud and sluggish, and given that powertrain development has advanced significantly in the last five to ten years, it’s a disappointment.

The surprisingly powerful electric motor generates most of the car's headline 189PS figure, but even with the added advantage of its oomph, refinement is found wanting, especially at higher revs, where it sounds screechy.

Electric-only driving is possible without the need for an engine, but with a battery size of just 1.69kWh, the relative peace and quiet doesn’t last long.

We had hoped to find solace in the bends, but sadly, it was not to be.

Take it into a corner, and the front tyres’ ability to grip the road is quickly swamped by the car’s mass, causing a very different screech as it understeers into a bend.

There is minimal feel through the steering wheel, so you can't gain any confidence in the car around a corner. That might be just as well because throwing it into the bend generates plenty of body lean.

Our final wish was that the poor handling might be due to Haval's setting the car up to be extra comfortable. Sadly, that wasn’t the case either.

The ride isn’t great at all, not feeling especially absorbing, and unless you’re driving on pristine roads, the slightest bump at speed leaves the car wobbling about.

Running Costs & Emissions

Haval's marketing spiel says it's "efficient," but the reality is that the Haval Jolion Pro only returns 47mpg and emits 133g/km of CO2.

Neither of those figures is brilliant – in fact, plenty of rivals can get into the 50s without any hybridisation at all.

Its theoretical range with a fully topped-up battery and full fuel tank is 620 miles.

That is pretty good – maybe, by “efficient”, Haval meant ‘you won’t need to stop at petrol stations as often’, but we’d beg to differ on that one, too.

The high emissions make it unattractive as a company car. Unless you earn so much money that you don't care, a plug-in hybrid is an absolute minimum requirement when cutting your Benefit In Kind tax.

Reliability-wise, Haval is a complete unknown.

Its sister brand, Ora, has been around for longer but still not enough to get a decent picture.

Interior & Technology

The cabin looks quite nice at first glance.

It would have been superb ten years ago, but interior design has shot up rapidly over the last decade, so the Jolion Pro appears to fit in with the crowd rather than stand out.

The steering wheel looks commandingly bold, with a double six-o’clock spoke bathed in silver trim.

You also see more silver and glossy grey colours on the doors, across the dashboard and on the centre console, which includes a nice, chrome-coloured rotary dial as the gear selector.

All this, along with the bright stitching on the upholstery, helps brighten things up a bit, making the Haval’s interior seem quite appealing, especially as some of the materials feel decent quality.

If you prod around, though, you’ll find plenty of thin plastics, but at least Haval has made an effort with it cosmetically.

The 10.25-inch infotainment system is a bit frustrating. Large black borders around the unit take up far too much screen space, making it look dated.

The software itself is okay, with a contemporary design. However, the very squashy font Haval has used isn't the easiest to read when on the move, and the screen resolution isn't particularly sharp.

Unfortunately, the menu layout isn't great either. It is hard to navigate, and the icons are as far away from you as they could possibly be when they could easily have been moved to the other side of the screen.

We sense the screen layout was designed for left-hand-drive cars, and nobody considered this when it arrived in the UK.

The touchscreen isn't exceptionally responsive to your inputs, and there’s no SatNav, but at least you can use an app on your phone, as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both offered as standard.

The digital instrument display is okay, but it’s nothing special and lacks customisability. Plus, it has the same squashy font as the infotainment screen.

As for the air conditioning, we initially thought we’d be saying that Haval had left physical controls for it beneath the touchscreen. And they have. Except for the temperature – the single most important bit – which can only be changed via the touchscreen.

Haval is by no means the only offender, but physical buttons are so much easier to hit than a screen when on the move. When you actually go to the trouble of leaving physical buttons, at least provide them for the most frequently used ones.

Overall, the cabin is reasonable and has a nice design, but the flaws in its design are consistent with the performance and handling of the Jolion Pro.

Practicality & Boot Space

It is easy to find a comfortable driving position in the Jolion Pro, especially since our top-of-the-range Ultra model has electric seat adjustment for both front seats.

By comparison, the mid-level Lux edition gets powered adjustment for the driver only, and the entry-level Premium is manual adjustment only.

The driving position isn't exceptionally high, but visibility out of the front is decent, aided by relatively thin windscreen pillars.

Out of the back, it's less successful, thanks to the low roof spoiler, large black borders around the back windscreen, and the pointed shape of the rear side windows. This results in more bodywork blocking over-the-shoulder views.

Mind you, the problem is mitigated by rear parking sensors, which are fitted as standard on all models.

Curiously, though, all models get a rear-view camera, and mid-range Lux adds a 360-degree camera, yet you need the top-of-the-range Ultra model to get parking sensors fitted at the front.

Some good news: the cabin space is one of the Haval’s biggest strengths.

Up front, you won't be struggling for headroom and legroom, and you're sufficiently separated from a front-seat passenger to avoid competition for elbow room.

In the rear, the back seats are incredibly roomy, with the reduced headroom resulting from the sloping roof causing little impact, while the legroom is mightily impressive.

However, there’s inevitably a catch.

The rear seats aren't particularly comfortable, but by far, the biggest problem is boot space - so much so that we thought the boot capacity figure in Haval's documentation was a typo. It is just 255 litres - in a mid-size SUV!

To put that in perspective, even a Renault Clio offers 391 litres.

Folding the seats down only increases the boot space to 916 litres, not even into four figures.

The seats only fold in a 60:40 split, so you won't get the versatility of some rivals, which offer a 40:20:40 split, although admittedly, 60:40 is typical for most in this class.

Nevertheless, when passenger space sacrifices this much cargo capacity, you know things are getting to pretty extreme levels.

There is no underfloor storage, and there isn't even a great deal of interior storage to compensate for the lack of room. There is a so-so glove compartment and only a relatively small cubby in the centre console.

Safety

Euro NCAP has yet to safety test the Haval Jolion Pro. However, the counterpart Australasian safety body, ANCAP, assessed it and gave it a five-star rating.

Although the ANCAP rating can’t be officially relied upon in the UK, the two organisations’ ratings are usually comparable and nearly identical.

ANCAP awarded it 90% for adult occupants, 84% for children, and 92% for safety assists - impressive scores.

The Jolion Pro comes standard with automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition and traffic jam assist, a tyre pressure monitoring system, rear parking sensors, and a rear-view camera.

You also get rear crossing traffic alert and braking, collision warning, lane departure warning and lane centring, blindspot detection, and driver fatigue detection.

As we said earlier, the mid-range Lux gets a 360-degree surround-view camera, while the top-of-the-range Ultra adds auto parking assist and front parking sensors.

Options

There’s no options list for the Haval Jolion Pro.

There are, however, a few body colours to choose from.

There is white, black, light blue, and grey. White is the default colour, and all the others cost a few hundred pounds extra.

And that’s about your lot.

Rival Cars

The Haval Jolion Pro is in a very crowded segment of the market.

A Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage and Niro, Ford Kuga and a Toyota RAV4 are all established alternatives.

The MG ZS,Citroen C4, Vauxhall Frontera, Skoda Kamiq, and Seat Ateca are also worthy of consideration.

There is the Suzuki S-Cross, too.

At the value-for-money end of the car leasing market, there’s the Dacia Duster, while at the premium end, you have the Lexus NX.

Verdict & Next Steps

Overall, the Haval Jolion Pro is sadly a 'hit' rather than a 'miss'.

While it has an attractive interior and is very reasonably priced to lease, little failings of attention to detail rob you of confidence in the car, both in terms of its drivability and design. And it's easy to see where else the Jolion Pro is falling short.

Its performance, handling and ride comfort are all beaten by plenty of competitors, while the driving experience overall is bland.

It is a shame, too, given that sister brand Ora has done really well. We had high hopes that Haval would be ‘more of the same with a different name’.

Don't let this put you off leasing Chinese imports, though. Some of them, notably Ora and BYD, have impressed, and even the ones that haven't will likely mature with time.

European standards, though, are much higher – and there are better alternatives out there – and, yes, even for similar money, let alone more.

So, unless you don't care and are judging the whole car by its leasing price, we’d likely skip over the Jolion Pro and go elsewhere.

Where to next?

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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 GWM Haval Jolian Pro

**Correct as of 03/07/2025. Based on 9 months initial payment, 5,000 miles annually, over a 48 month lease. Initial payment equivalent to 9 monthly payments, or £2,597.49 (Plus admin fee) Ts and Cs apply. Credit is subject to status.