Not an EV…But a Turbo Petrol!

There is an invasion of Chinese EVs and PHEVs in the Sri Lankan auto market. Hence, it’s interesting to check out the Chinese’ take on good old forced inductive petrol power. Enter, the Jaecoo J8 midsize (large in a Sri Lankan context) SUV. Brought to you by Hayleys Mobility, the agents for Jaecoo and Omoda in Sri Lanka, it comes with a spacious five-seat layout, a roomy cargo compartment and all-wheel drive. Oh, and it consumes 95-octane petrol rather than demanding fast-charges of electrons. So, without further ado, let’s give this machine the full Motor test drive treatment. In this regard, I must give a special shout-out to the Hayleys Mobility team for letting us take it off the tarmac and push it around mud and gravel too. After all, its diverse testing conditions that let us get a better picture of how a vehicle will fare in regular Sri Lankan use.

Exterior

Black or White by Micheal Jackson is the best way to describe the available colour palette because that’s it, really. In fact, you’ve got twice as much of colours that Henry Ford offered on the famous Model T over a century ago. Why oh why, Jaecoo (or rather, Chery, who Jaecoo belongs to) are you being so rigid? Only Arctic White or Carbon Black to pick from? The J8 definitely deserves some non-monochrome shades too. That being said, the Arctic White coat that our tester wears isn’t a flat paint; it’s got some fleck, shimmer and depth to it. Hence, it looks pretty good in the sunshine in conjunction with the 20-inch machined alloy wheels that are wrapped with 245/50 all-season tires.

The overall look of the J8 is one of familiarity rather than being edgy or futuristic. This is a rather conventional SUV in appearance, that gels well with its regular gasoline powertrain, and I feel that its look will age well as a result. The front is dominated by the Jaecoo ‘waterfall grill’, and features LED lighting. The door handles are the motorized pop-out style which I am not a fan of, but that’s due to change in a year or two thanks to Chinese regulations. The roof profile tapers down slightly as you move towards the rear, with blacked-out B, C and D-pillars and slimline-style rear lamps. The tailgate is powered and offers hands-free operation too. For the academically inclined, the vehicle is 4.82 metres long, 1.93 metres wide and 1.71 metres tall. That’s on the larger side for an SUV in Sri Lanka, but still pretty manageable.

Mech & Tech

Chery’s Acteco engine family has been around for more than a decade, so it’s pretty well established. The unit under the hood of the Jaecoo J8 is a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder unit called the F4J20. Aided by direct injection and turbocharging, the unit is rated to deliver a decent dollop of 245 horsepower and 385 newton-metres of torque. It’s paired with an 8-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive system. You’ve also got seven drive modes to select from, namely Eco, Normal, Sport, Snow, Sand, Mud and Off-Road. Meanwhile, the suspension uses MacPherson strut at the front and multi-link at the rear, with Continuous Damping Control (CDC). Braking is via ventilated discs at the front and solid discs at the rear. Electric power steering is also present as you’d expect.

Driving the Jaecoo J8

A power-adjustable (8-way) drivers’ seat allows you to easily get comfortable, whether you prefer a low-slung or high-riding position. Once you’re settled, you’ll note the gear shifter on the steering column, the 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, and of course, the tilt-and-telescopic adjustable steering column. There’s also a heads-up display that discretely shows information projected onto the windscreen. Select D, the electronic emergency brake automatically releases and you’re on your way.

Right off the bat, you’ll note that the J8 has moderate pace, since it’s a somewhat heavy vehicle, tipping the scales at nearly 1,900 kilos before anybody gets on board. No surprise, then, that the 0-100km/h figure is listed at 9 seconds, which seems about right in testing. If you’re coming to the J8 from a regular petrol or petrol hybrid vehicle it’s perfectly fine, but if you take its wheel straight after coming out of an EV, you’ll notice the lack of that instantaneous torque that only an EV can give. That’s to be expected after all – EVs have spoilt us with that ‘kick’ from a standstill! You can somewhat simulate this by “launching” the J8 – that is, sticking it in Sport mode, holding the brake down with your left foot, giving a healthy dose of throttle with your right, and abruptly lifting off the brake. Then, the J8 lurches forward with eagerness, but it’s not quite the same as flooring the throttle from a standstill in an all-wheel drive EV or PHEV (such as the Omoda C9 which we will be properly testing in the future).

But you know what? After a short while I enjoyed driving the J8 more than many EVs! Call me old-school but the torque delivery of internal combustion, the rather well-damped but audible petrol engine soundtrack under load, and even the distant sensation of the engine’s vibrations made for a bit of nostalgia. If I had any reason to be disappointed, it was due to the lack of paddle shifters for manual gear changes, and I may have repeated this point to the Hayleys Mobility team at least five(!) times during my drive. Since the gear shifter is a column-mounted affair, there’s no avenue for changing gears manually here either. Which was a pity because the gearbox shifted rather nicely, with well-judged shift points and a decent mix between smoothness and shift speed. Adding manual control would be a bunch of cherries on the cake.

The J8 has several drive modes, including Eco, Normal, Sport, Snow, Mud, Sand and Off-Road. You can also switch off its ESP which I did when fooling around on some gravel. Then, I realized that its all-wheel drive system is very front-biased. This is to be expected from a vehicle that will likely spend most of its time on hard, smooth surfaces, but it also means you can’t really get the tail to wag in lurid slides as you could with, say, a 4WD vehicle that can be switched into rear-wheel drive mode. You can give it a good dose of steering and throttle and see some sideways action plus rooster trails of gravel or sand, but you always get the feeling that the rear is led by the front, rather than twitching to take over leadership. Of course that means that the J8 will be a rather predictable handler for the less intellectually endowed who see the term ALL WHEEL DRIVE and decide to play at being WRC driver.

However, the J8 has got a surprising level of capability if you’re smooth and measured. It rides higher than you’d expect from a cursory glance, and a fully flat undercarriage means that you can easily scale obstacles that would stymie many other similar vehicles. Indeed, we took our test J8 to the road leading to the famed Rajagiriya off-roading spot. We didn’t take it into the actual off-roading area as it was during the rainy season, and we knew that the vehicle’s all-season tires would get bogged down in the deep, sticky mud. However, we did try out the Mud and Sand modes in less treacherous places and made decent progress without ever getting stuck.

In the city, the J8 rides as smoothly and peacefully as you’d expect. It’s got great visibility, easily modulated brakes and the gauge cluster is visible even under bright sunshine. Exploring the drive modes, I found that in Eco mode, you’ve got numbed-down throttle response, light steering and softer suspension. Selecting Normal increases throttle response a bit as well as steering heft. Sport mode, meanwhile, gives you much sharper response, holds gears longer before shifting up, and the suspension seems to firm up a bit as well. For me, Normal was the preferred mode, unless I wanted some sharper urge, in lieu of paddles, I’d shift to Sport and floor it. I wasn’t able to test out the vehicle’s highway driving, but I did push it to higher speeds and noted that it felt quite planted, even when taking sweeping bends at a decent clip.

Living With The Jaecoo J8

The Jaecoo J8 in petrol form comes with a spacious five-seat configuration. We’re told that the plug-in hybrid variant packs in a folding third row too, for a total of seven seats. That’s pretty versatile for larger families, but if you prefer boot space, this variant is preferable. It’s not often that I start this section with boot space, but 738 litres below the cargo cover is definitely above-average. Eyeballing the inside, it’s spacious, to say the least, and if you choose to stack your cargo above the window line, you can fit even more, albeit at the risk of losing some rearward visibility. Plus, beneath the boot floor lurks a proper, full-size spare wheel and tyre combo for added peace of mind.

Getting back to the interior, you’ve got only one choice of colour – black. I wish there was a second option as well, such as a light beige, blue, or even a toffee/caramel brown. However, the cabin is quite nicely decked out, with colour-selectable ambient lighting and some lovely Alcantara-look fabric in certain places. You can even open the panoramic moonroof (with front sunroof) and lighten up things a bit.

The seating surfaces are covered with quilted leather that seems quite supple. The dual-zone climate control system comes with rear passenger vents as well as a built-in fragrance system. Of course, Hayleys Mobility will sell you replacement fragrance cartridges too. Plus, the front seats have heating and ventilation which is pretty common among Chinese (and Indian) vehicles now, but there are two sweeteners to further seal the deal. One is, the front seats also offer multiple massaging modes. Two, the outboard rear seats are heated and ventilated too! Now isn’t that neat?

Moving on, we’ve got the obligatory Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with wired and wireless connectivity, hooked up to a 12-speaker sound system by Sony. We had no faults with sound quality and of course, you can adjust equalizer parameters if you wish to further tailor things to your liking. Another neat feature is a pair of speakers mounted inside the driver’s headrest. This allows you to take hands-free calls in a discreet manner without your passengers listening to juicy gossip or business trade secrets. However, the flip side of such versatility is that the driver foregoes the nice, aircraft-style winged headrest with adjustable wings that the front passenger enjoys.