Not content with selling cars in the UK under its own brand plus offshoots Jaecoo, Omoda and Lepas, Chery is bringing yet another marque to the UK in the form of iCaur. We already know the V27 is heading to our shores, and it might well be followed by the latest iCaur to be fully revealed, the V25.
First teased earlier in the year, it slots between the five-metre-long V27 and the Jeep Avenger-sized V23, coming in at around 4.6 metres. We might as well bring up the Jeep brand, because there’s something Wrangler-esque about the V25, perhaps with a dash of Land Rover Defender and a few other influences.
Defender influences appear to continue inside, with a chunky-looking cabin design reminiscent of the current version of the iconic Land Rover. Unlike most Chinese cars we test at Auto Express, there’s a pleasing array of physical buttons inside the V25, including old-school toggle switches and dials for the climate control temperature and fan speeds.
To the left of these is a big dial marked ‘drive mode’ depicting the V25 tackling rough terrain, which suggests the car might have at least some ability away from the Tarmac, although we’re not expecting it to be happy tackling anything especially hardcore.
If it sounds like we’re having to make some educated guesses about the V25, that’s because we are. Technical information is largely absent at this stage, although Chinese media outlets report that the car uses a 1.5-litre engine primarily acting as a generator to keep a 34kWh battery pack topped up. This same set-up is seen in the larger V27, with two electric motors providing an impressive 449bhp.
The V27 will be the first car to arrive in the UK from the brand, which is known as ‘iCar’ in China, but iCaur elsewhere to avoid any legal shenanigans with Apple. It’ll arrive in the UK in early 2027, but it hasn’t been confirmed if the V25 will come here, too.
“UK plans for the model have yet to be confirmed,” iCaur says, although we are promised additional details about the UK range “in the months ahead”.
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