2023 Chery Omoda 5 (inc. 0-100 & autonomy test) review

CarExpert

The new Chery Omoda 5 is one of the cheapest SUVs in Australia...but should you be spending your money on it? Paul Maric takes the 2023 Chery Omoda 5 turbo for a drive to see if it's any good.  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Chery content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/chery More Chery Omoda 5 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/chery/omoda-5  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:56 Interior 02:41 Infotainment 04:03 Safety Tech 06:49 Practicality 07:57 On the Road 11:32 Driver aids 17:19 Performance 19:24 Verdict 22:17  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #chery #omoda5 #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, Cherry, it's a Chinese brand. The last time they were in Australia, they

00:04 weren't that great. They're hoping to turn things around this time with

00:09 some new SUVs. And fun fact that I learned, Cherry is China's biggest exporter of cars.

00:15 So there you go. This is called the Emoto 5, and they're selling two specifications in Australia.

00:20 This one here is the top spec EX version. It's priced at just under $33,000. If that's too

00:25 expensive, the whole range kicks off at just under $30,000, which is pretty compelling pricing.

00:30 This competes with things like the Haval Jolion, the Kia Seltos, the Toyota Corolla Cross. That is

00:37 the segment that it's in. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car. So if you do want

00:40 to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on the screen. Or if you're

00:44 on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,

00:48 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. That way, you're going to find out every single

00:51 time we drive a revived brand to Australia. Okay, let's talk about exterior design. You've got seven

00:58 external colours to pick from. All But Green is going to set you back $500. In terms of the way

01:03 that it looks here in person, it actually looks quite nice. It really is hard to fault. It's got

01:08 a huge grille down the bottom here. You've got the Cherry logo there as well. Even further down the

01:12 bottom, you've got a radar sensor there, and then these sort of chrome highlights throughout that

01:18 section, plus the little camera nestles into there as well. Around the sides of the car as well,

01:22 you're going to see these red highlights too. Over on this side, you have LED daytime running

01:27 lights, and then the headlight cluster is down the bottom here. This is an LED headlight cluster

01:31 as well. Around the side here, you've got a set of 18-inch alloy wheels. A little bit more red

01:37 there as well. The top spec model gets these red brake calipers too. Wheel arch cladding there as

01:42 well. The whole range is front-wheel drive only. They do have other versions of Cherry SUVs coming

01:48 down the track here, but the Emota 5 range is exclusively front-wheel drive for the moment.

01:52 Up the top here, more of that red highlight indicator built into the wing mirror with a

01:56 piano black housing. Camera there as well. You've got puddle lights as well, and then more red down

02:02 the bottom there too. Up the top here, you've got a sunroof, also black coloured roof there as well.

02:06 Whip around to the back with me. Now, around the back here, you have this sort of 3D setup on the

02:12 taillight, so it's a full LED taillight. Down here, you have 230T, so this signifies turbo.

02:19 230 is the amount of torque that it makes. Up the top there, shark fin aerial, and then a

02:23 dual-tiered spoiler, which is pretty fancy. And then, Cherry over here with Emota 5 down the

02:29 bottom, along with some faux carbon there in these fake exhaust outlets as well. So, let me know what

02:35 you reckon about the design. Do you think it looks good? Are you excited for this? Let me know in the

02:40 comments section below. So, we are inside the Emota 5. Let's start off with the key. So, you have,

02:45 around the top here, you have unlock, boot, lock. You have a remote start function. Then,

02:52 on the back, you have the Cherry logo. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in

02:55 your pocket. Once you're inside, you have a push-button start just up the top here.

03:00 So, interior design. It is a really pleasant-looking interior. So, for $30,000-odd,

03:05 I think this is pretty nicely presented. This looks very familiar. It looks the same as the

03:10 Tesla Model 3 and Y in terms of the charging pad with that sort of Alcantara trimming on it.

03:15 This stuff here doesn't look all that great. I'm glad they didn't use piano black, but it sort of

03:20 looks a little bit cheap there. But, the screens look nice ahead of the driver there,

03:24 and you have the driver monitoring system just here as well. In terms of the materials,

03:27 they're all actually not too bad. It is a little scratchy down the bottom here,

03:30 but for the most part, this all looks and feels sort of nice and premium enough for this kind

03:35 of price tag, which I think is pretty good. In terms of the touch points, nice and soft there.

03:40 Soft there as well. How soft are they? Well, we've got our durometer. We've tested the main

03:44 surfaces in this cab, and if you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested

03:48 before, look at the link in the description below. Now, build quality. What is it like?

03:55 Actually, it all feels really nice and solid. Our door slam test

03:59 sounds really nice and solid as well. Now, let's talk infotainment system. So,

04:05 ahead of the driver, you have a 10.25-inch display, and then the infotainment is a 10.25-inch display

04:11 as well. And this one is a touchscreen, whereas this one here is driven by the steering wheel.

04:16 Now, it is an interesting system because a lot of these Chinese manufacturers,

04:21 they now rely on smartphone mirroring to get a lot of that functionality working, and

04:25 that means that they don't have to do a great deal to make the actual infotainment system work all

04:30 that well. But here, they've actually done a really good job, and when you compare some of

04:33 the Chinese brands to some of the more established brands, these infotainment systems are just really

04:38 good. They're just nice and snappy and quick. There's no unnecessary functionality here. It

04:43 just does everything you need it to do, and then you just rely on your smartphone mirroring to do

04:48 the rest. So, from that perspective, it is actually really good. You have your manual built into there

04:52 as well, plus the ability to stream video and also pictures when you plug in a USB device.

04:57 Now, I do like this function. So, this is a voice recognition system. Some of the stuff that it can

05:03 do and the way that it recognizes your voice is actually really impressive. So, I'll give you an

05:07 example here. Open all the windows. "All right, open." That's pretty cool. Then what you can do

05:15 is, I don't know, like switch on climate control. "I'm listening." Turn on the air conditioning.

05:21 "Got it. Turning on AC." Like, it is a really clever system, and it works really well,

05:27 especially when you consider that, I guess, where they sell this car in China, you're not going to

05:31 be talking to it in English. So, it recognizes my voice really well. So,

05:35 really impressed with that functionality there. I'll put all these windows back up.

05:38 "I'm listening." Close all the windows. "All right, closed."

05:43 Now, on the radio front, you have an eight-speaker Sony-branded sound system. The sound system isn't

05:49 too bad, but there is a slight issue, though, with the sound system. So, watch this. If I

05:53 turn the audio up, sort of working okay, and then I plug the phone in,

05:58 and then it just stops working entirely. So, it seems to be like you can't have smartphone

06:06 mirroring running while you have FM radio running as well. So, yeah, a bit of a flaw there, but

06:12 hopefully something I can work out. This is what Android Auto looks like. So,

06:16 big full-screen integration there. Android Auto is available both wired and wireless,

06:21 and it's nice and snappy there as well without too many dramas. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay

06:26 looks like. Same story again, it's available wireless and wired. A little bit laggy here

06:32 compared to Android Auto, though it's sort of a little slow to react there, and that's with the

06:37 phone hooked up using a cable. So, yeah, probably a little bit of work to be done here with the

06:42 infotainment system. Screen ahead of the driver is pretty nice and clear, and we'll have a bit

06:46 of play with that when we do go for a drive later on. Now, let's talk about safety technology. So,

06:51 this car has a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating. You have autonomous emergency braking with

06:57 pedestrian detection. This mirror here is really odd. It's kind of, it's got a bit of curvature to

07:04 it, so everything looks, I don't know, closer or something than it actually is. So, it is curious.

07:10 It's not an issue, but just something a little different to point out. You have a lane departure

07:15 warning with a lane keeping assistant. You have radar cruise control. We'll test the semi-autonomous

07:19 steering function a little bit later on. You have a blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror.

07:24 You have front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera. You also have rear cross traffic alert as

07:29 well. Let's have a look at what the camera looks like. So, there it is there. Quality of that is

07:34 actually really good. So, that's looking out the front, a wide-angle view out the front. Looking

07:38 out the rear, you can clearly see the writing there. 3D view is pretty straightforward. A little

07:44 weird around the back there, but it's a pretty straightforward view. You can select different

07:49 camera angles as well and then zoom in on the ones that you're after. It's actually really not a bad

07:55 setup at all, so that's quite impressive. This is what the horn sounds like.

07:58 Okay, moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. So,

08:03 you have these two enormous wireless phone chargers up the top here.

08:07 Down here on this storage tray, you have a USB-A and a USB-C port. The USB-A is for smartphone,

08:13 mirroring USB-C is just for charging. You have a 12-volt outlet around on my side. You also have

08:18 a USB outlet up the top here for a dash cam. What about storing your things? So, your phone can kind

08:24 of just live in here if you want or on the wireless charging pads. Coffee cup. So, it will get

08:30 de-lidded in there. Unfortunately, it sits quite low, so it's not designed for little coffee cups,

08:35 but in terms of bottle, it fits in there without any dramas. Teeth in there as well to hold it in

08:40 place. Try a bottle inside the door, it fits in there perfectly as well. Centre console. Now,

08:46 this thing is not only air-conditioned, but it is enormous. It goes sort of all the way under there.

08:50 You also have this big storage area down the bottom there as well, which I really like,

08:55 and then a glove box here as well, which is generously sized also.

08:59 Now, in terms of comfort, you have dual-zone automatic climate control with heated seats

09:04 here for the front row. You also have a heated steering wheel as well. In terms of the seats

09:10 and the comfort, so, the seats look really cool. So, they are perforated and the design itself is

09:15 actually really quite nice. Seat adjustment comes in the form of electric for the driver and also

09:21 the passenger. So, you can go forwards and backwards. Your backrest can go forwards and

09:25 backwards. You can lift the back of the seat. Unfortunately, you can't lift the front. I found

09:30 with a couple of the other Chinese vehicles I've driven before that that's a bit of a problem

09:34 because you feel like you're sloping down. So, we'll see how that works when we do go for a drive.

09:38 On the steering front, you have both tilt and reach adjustments, and on our reach test,

09:44 all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.

09:46 Okay, second row, what's it like here? Start off with room. So, knee room's okay. It's sort

09:51 of not too bad. My seat is quite far back. Toe room isn't very good because you've got like this

09:57 foot area here, but then it narrows a lot and you kind of have to squeeze your toes into there.

10:02 Headroom is not too bad. In terms of your creature comforts back here, you've got air vents,

10:06 a single USB-A port, mat pockets in there. Not too bad. ISOFix points on the two outboard seats

10:14 with three top tether points. Center armrest here with two cup holders, rubber teeth in there to

10:19 hold it in place. Bottle can also go inside the door as well. Now, windows, let's have a look

10:25 here. So, auto up and down. They go all the way down as well. Very impressive. Now, let's talk

10:31 cargo space. So, you've got a powered tailgate. You just push this button here and that cracks

10:35 open. Once that does open, now, it is a little bit confusing because they've quoted two size

10:41 figures here. So, a little under 300 litres and then around 350 litres. I think that is this

10:46 space here, and then the bigger number is the maximum space, including this area under the

10:51 cargo floor. Beneath this section, you have a space saver spare tyre, 12-volt outlet off to the

10:56 side, a little light over there as well. Show you what it looks like with our bags in there. So,

11:01 laptop bag, and then we'll put the suitcase in. Now, I'm wondering if that will close.

11:06 Let's give that a shot, the ultimate test. Let's see what happens here. No, not quite. Okay. So,

11:14 your suitcase has to go in the other way around, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how much

11:18 size there is there. Now, we don't have a figure for the expanded space, but if you do want to

11:23 expand the space a little bit, you can drop your second row out of the way, and that creates pretty

11:28 much a flat load floor. Okay. So, we've just hit the road in the Omoda 5. So, powering this is a

11:37 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. It's made into a continuously variable

11:44 transmission, so there's no stepped gears in effect. With a lot of CVTs, you do actually have

11:50 paddle shifters on the steering wheel that allow you to grab a preset gear, but this doesn't have

11:55 any of that, so it just waits for driver input to actually achieve what it needs to achieve.

11:59 It produces 115 kilowatts of power and 230 newton metres of torque. It doesn't sound like a great

12:07 deal, but you've got to consider that this doesn't weigh much at all. I think it's around that 13,

12:11 1400 kilo mark, so it's not really a great deal of weight to be working with, and as a result of

12:16 that, it doesn't feel all that slow. So, how does all that feel behind the wheel? Let's give it a

12:19 little punch here. It actually pushes you back into the seat really nicely, and like I said,

12:26 that weight really helps it sort of get up and move, because it's not a huge amount of weight

12:30 to move, and then 230 newton metres with a turbocharged engine is more than enough to get

12:35 things happening. Now, fuel economy. So, Cherry claims a combined average of just under 7 litres

12:40 per 100 km, we are currently sitting on 10.1, so yeah, not amazing. That's included a fair chunk of

12:48 highway driving as well, so yeah, look, that is probably a little bit high. Obviously, it is a

12:53 turbocharged petrol engine that will chew through a little bit of fuel, but yeah, not entirely

12:58 thrilled with that fuel economy. Hopefully, it gets better over time with a little bit more highway

13:02 driving. Now, one thing I am noticing here is the steering. It is incredibly light. There isn't a

13:10 great deal of feel through it either, so in and around the city, that's not the end of the world,

13:13 because it means it's sort of easy to park. The slow speed manoeuvres are fine, but here while

13:18 you're driving, there's just not a huge amount of feel there, so I think they could probably do a

13:23 little bit more work on just getting that steering feel into it, so you actually know what's happening

13:28 with the front wheels when you do have a steering input. Let's talk about the ride. So, the ride's

13:33 really interesting. In and around the city, it is very nice and soft, and what we find with a lot of

13:37 these Chinese market cars is they are built for comfort, so they're not really built for handling

13:42 and performance, and this is one of those. So, in and around the city, it feels nice and comfortable

13:45 and sort of nothing too surprising, but let's dial up a bit of speed here to 130 kilometres an hour,

13:51 which is our highest speed limit in Australia. It's also the speed you're likely to hit if you

13:56 do any overtaking in the country, and once you get out of the city confines. So, there's 130 there.

14:04 Wow! That is terrible. Yeah, so that's really not very good. So, yeah, the body control there

14:13 is not great, and that comes as a result of the ride being far too soft. So, when it is that soft

14:19 and you hit those continuous undulations, it really bucks you about and it holds it very high up the

14:25 top. Like I said, it is pretty common with the Chinese market cars to do that, unfortunately,

14:30 but I guess it is what it is. Now, what about our bumpy road test? So, this simulates a dodgy

14:39 country road here in Australia. We'll dial up 90 k's an hour. We'll plough over some of this stuff

14:44 to see what it feels like. Yeah, look, it is interesting. The ride is very soft, which helps

14:51 with comfort, but there just isn't the body control you'd expect, especially here on these

14:57 close sign waves. The suspension just doesn't have time to settle, and even on these bumps here,

15:02 if you do have any steering inputs, it kind of is just all over the place. It's not really

15:07 very well settled. So, it is comfortable, but it just lacks the body control and that

15:11 fine a bit of tuning you get when you do actually get the car tuned for local roads,

15:16 as opposed to having a one-size-fits-all ride and handling tune.

15:24 Okay, you've got two drive modes, Eco and Sport. If we hit the Sport button,

15:28 throttle becomes more responsive, the steering is heavier.

15:31 I'm going for a fang around our track here and see how all this feels.

15:35 Look, I will preface this by saying, obviously, you're not going to be driving your car like this

15:47 every day of the week, but we bench test all the cars back-to-back in the exact same way,

15:52 and that includes a spirited drive around our ride and handling circuit.

15:56 And look, it's actually not that bad. There still isn't a great deal of feel through the steering

16:01 wheel, but even though it has a sort of fair degree of body roll with that softer suspension,

16:07 it is pretty predictable in terms of what it's doing, and it has enough road holding.

16:11 I thought those tyres might be the limiting factor here, but they

16:16 just seem to be doing a pretty good job there.

16:20 I've never heard of that brand, Yitty, Yitty Comfort, whatever they're called. So,

16:24 yeah, it's actually not too bad. So we've got our back straight here, I'll just

16:27 roll onto the throttle, we'll see what it's like here for the mid-range.

16:30 Look, it is actually picking up speed not too badly there, sort of nudging 140, 150.

16:36 Yeah, not too bad at all.

16:39 Now, let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the car there,

16:45 the wing mirrors are nice and big and visibility out the back is okay. It's weird, it's got that

16:50 really strange rear-vision mirror that I can't really get my head around, but I can see clearly

16:55 out the back there. And the camera's great as well, so when it comes to low-speed parking

16:58 manoeuvres, it is all pretty straightforward.

17:00 Now, let's talk about road noise. Yeah, there is, I don't know, it's interesting, there is so much

17:04 wind noise in here that it's hard to tell how much road noise is actually coming into the cabin,

17:08 and that wind noise from the sunroof is really odd as well. It is just,

17:11 really barrelling into here, so it's something they really need to sort out.

17:15 Okay, time to test our lane support system. So I'm going to get the speed up to 70 k's an hour.

17:22 Once it's at 70 k's an hour, which is a little bit hard to see because our GoPro's in the way,

17:27 there's 70. You can see here the steering function is active, and then also radar cruise control as

17:33 well, and it's going to basically keep us within that lane and then steer us around.

17:38 So, I'm going to test it in the three outer lanes that all appears to be active at the moment.

17:43 So, I'm going to test it on the three outer lanes. Here in the first lane, it's doing a great job.

17:47 We're pretty much centre in the lane there, and it's all holding really nicely.

17:51 We'll jump over to the next lane, wait for the system to activate.

17:55 There it is there. It's all running. You're meant to keep your hands on the steering wheel, but

18:03 I'm just holding it off.

18:05 And just a reminder, we're not testing how well the car banks. The banking simply requires the

18:09 car to be adding more torque to the steering, and we do find that any car that does well here on

18:13 the banked oval tends to do well out on real world conditions when you approach corners and stuff.

18:17 So, doing a great job here in the second lane. Let's try our steepest banked lane, and we'll see

18:23 whether it will perform up here as well. Wait for that to activate.

18:28 It's a bit unsure of itself. It's coming on and off there. Let's give it another chance here.

18:35 It's not loving this. I think it's because I've got too much steering input, and it's not

18:42 allowing it to then activate. And as we get closer to that line, it's not really

18:48 going to be able to do it. So, we'll just give it another chance here.

18:53 Allowing it to then activate. And as we get closer to that line, it thinks we're

18:58 going to go past it. We'll just try a little bit higher here.

19:02 And it's detecting the lanes, but it's then not activating our self-steering function.

19:07 So, yeah, look, it's a pass in lane one and two, but a fail here in the steepest banked lane,

19:13 which means that out on the roads, it's probably not going to cope as well with

19:17 bends and stuff like that. So, yeah, look, it did a commendable job in the other two lanes,

19:22 but not quite as well there on the third lane.

19:24 OK, time to do a little bit of zero to 100. I've got it in sport mode, but I can't figure out how

19:32 to turn traction control or stability control off. There's nothing here in the driver assistance

19:37 settings. I'll try talking to the lady here. I'll see what she says.

19:40 "I'm listening."

19:42 Turn off stability control.

19:44 "OK, cancelled."

19:50 Doesn't appear to have done anything.

19:52 "What's up?"

19:53 Turn off traction control.

19:55 "Sorry, try me again?"

19:58 Turn off traction control.

19:59 "Once more, you can say..."

20:02 No, that's not going to work. So I think I'll just stand on the throttle. If it gets any wheel slip,

20:07 it is just what it is. Unfortunately, we can't switch it off by the look of it. So,

20:11 oh, actually, if you do know how to switch it off, let me know in the comments section below.

20:14 But we're going to do a zero to 120, and then we'll capture our 80 to 120

20:18 acceleration results as well. And then we'll come back to do a little bit of braking and

20:21 our reverse speed test. So here we go. Dial up some revs. Wheel slip there, but we'll stay in that

20:28 all the way through to 120. There's 100.

20:34 And 120. We'll jump on the brakes here. And let's have a look at how we went.

20:44 Zero to 100 kilometres an hour took 9.24 seconds, and then 80 to 120 took 6.36 seconds. So that's

20:54 actually not bad. So 80 to 120, it actually had a fair bit of movement there. So that was pretty

20:58 good. Now, let's go back and do a brake test and see how long it takes to stop from 100 k's an hour.

21:03 OK, time for our 100 to zero test. Let's dial up some speed here.

21:07 And we'll just hit the anchors from 100 k's an hour. So there's 100 just there. Here we go.

21:15 OK, let's have a little sticky break here. So 100 to zero took 2.88 seconds and 40.29 metres. So

21:29 the most amazing results in the world. So if you do want to see how this car compares to other

21:33 cars that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. We've only

21:36 just started doing this, so we are building the database, but you'll be able to see how this car

21:40 compares to other SUVs as well. Now it's time for our reverse acceleration test.

21:46 Let's see how this goes. The throttle. OK, so about 50 k's an hour. Now it's still picking up speed.

21:58 Still going, still going. 60, 67, 72 k's an hour. Not a bad effort, Cherry.

22:10 So the Cherry Emoto 5. Look, it is significantly better than the last time Cherry tried selling

22:23 cars in Australia. So that is a really big positive. So look, in terms of the other positives,

22:28 the interior is really nicely presented. The tech is really good as well, aside from that

22:32 small radio issue that we had. And I think that in terms of the space that you're getting compared

22:36 to its competitors, it's actually pretty good. The one thing I did notice as well, though,

22:40 look at all of the standard equipment you have in this vehicle. It's $30,000 or thereabouts,

22:45 plus on-road costs. It just shows you how much margin there is in some of the other,

22:51 more expensive brands. And I know that this obviously hasn't been established in Australia

22:55 for long at all, but it does show you that you can still produce and buy a car with a lot of

22:59 features without spending a great deal of money. In terms of the negatives, fuel economy wasn't

23:03 fantastic. Dynamically, it's not very good as well. These are all things that they can work

23:08 on over time. But when you look at the price that you're paying, seven-year warranty, seven years

23:11 of roadside assistance, and seven years of cap price servicing, it does seem like a pretty good

23:16 deal to me. So let me know in the comments section below, are you going to buy one?

23:20 What colour and spec did you go for? I'm keen for your feedback. If you did enjoy this video,

23:24 please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already,

23:27 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. Until next time, goodbye.

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