MotorTrend Testing Director
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MotorTranscript
00:00This is the Zeker 007, maybe 007, I don't know how you say it, but this is a company
00:15owned by Geely, which also owns Volvo and Polestar, two brands sold in the US.
00:20So some of this technology, some of the stuff you see in a vehicle like this could potentially
00:25be on sale in our market as well.
00:27This is kind of a Model 3 competitor.
00:29This is around $36,000, it's a rear drive version, not an all-wheel drive version, but
00:36quite powerful for a rear drive car.
00:44There's a little bit of a delay there where you lift off the brake before the car moves
00:47at all, but zero to 60 in about four and a half seconds.
00:52At high speeds here, the car wanders a bit, both with crosswinds and then just not really
00:57feeling confident in the steering.
00:59There's a bit of dead zone in the center, and so you can move the car around without
01:03feeling like you're doing much in the way of steering.
01:05Let's do a couple brake stops.
01:12Noisy ABS motor, stops are around 125 feet, which is not great.
01:18Some of the better cars in this comparison test were doing more like 117, 118 feet.
01:23It's a pretty big difference.
01:31You can hear the ABS working, you can feel the ABS working, and I think that's partly
01:36because the tires don't have a ton of grip, and so the ABS is working overtime to get
01:42the most out of them without locking them up.
01:44Also got a big puff of smoke there when I drove away coming off the front brakes.
01:49No warning yet though.
01:51Let's go into the figure eight, see how long they can hold up.
01:55This car doesn't really want to oversteer, but it doesn't feel too pushy, and that's
02:00maybe partly the fact that you don't have to worry about sending too much power to the
02:05front wheels since it's a rear drive car, and impressively, a pretty powerful one.
02:10Be nice to see somebody do a rear drive performance EV.
02:16It seems like everybody's thinking these days, wow, you want a performance car?
02:19It's got to be all wheel drive.
02:21Definitely still have stability control in play here.
02:25When you get it right, it's not really too intrusive, but clearly it's probably one of
02:30the reasons this car doesn't really want to slide on the corner exit there.
02:35Figure eight time, looks like my best one's a 27 flat.
02:39That's not anything to write home about.
02:41Like the Neo ET5, there's a grip thing here going on.
02:45You can be cornering at pretty timid speeds, and you hear the tires howling.
02:53I was initially intrigued and excited by the idea of the Zeker 007.
02:58425 horsepower and rear wheel drive?
03:02Sounds like a performance car to me, but our testing revealed otherwise.
03:06Too soft and too tame, the 007 turned out not to be the sports sedan I was expecting.
03:12Zeker tells me this comfort-oriented tuning is intentional, because that's what Chinese
03:17buyers expect from a rear wheel drive EV.
03:19Fair enough.
03:20I'll just be here waiting for someone, anyone, to make a rear wheel drive performance EV.