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The all-electric Jaecoo J6 is set to arrive on local showroom floors in 2025. Picture: Mark Jones
Just the other day I was telling you about the sneak-peek drive I had in the all-electric Omoda E5 that probably won’t make its way here. But I also got to sample the electric Jaecoo J6 which is almost definitely coming here.
I say almost, because nothing is ever certain, until it is. My talks with the marketing people and the fact that the J6 is all over their local website already, indicates I can all but confirm that we will see the Jaecoo J6 in 2025.
Chery International, who are also the parent company of Jaecoo, Omoda, Jetour and mother brand Chery, launched an all-electric sub-brand in 2023 in China. Called iCar, the first model to go into production was the 03. This is the car you see here but badged as the Jaecoo J6 for the South African market.
The Jaecoo J6 is a full battery electric SUV that will be available in rear-wheel drive and intelligent all-wheel drive (i-AWD). The i-AWD J6 features an electric motor on each axle that delivers a combined output of 205kW of power and 385Nm of torque. It features driving modes like All-Road, Slippery, Sand, Muddy, and Bumpy to go with the normal Eco, Standard, and Sport offerings of the RWD.
Fitted with a 69.77-kWh battery, the Jaecoo J6 i-AWD will offer a claimed range of 418km and an average battery consumption of 19kWh per 100km.
I got a very brief drive in one of them last year in China in a parking lot test-track set-up. It was very short and completely pointless. But what it did allow was a brief feel of how brisk this mid-size SUV can be. But it’s not the 205kW i-AWD version you see here, it’s the more relaxed rear-wheel drive that I got to spend a few weeks with, so let me dive straight into that.
ALSO READ: Electric, off-road ready Jaecoo J6 unboxed at Festival of Motoring
The Jaecoo J6 RWD runs only one electric motor on the rear wheels and makes 135kW of power and 220Nm of torque and weighs in at 1 850kg. This means it’s not that powerful or heavy in today’s world where everything seems to be getting heavier and more powerful. But what this middle of the two extremes combo does translate into, is performance that is not electrifyingly fast, but more than acceptable for every day driving.
Even with this said, the i-AWD is claimed to bolt to 100 km/h in a mere 6.5 seconds, which is closer to hot hatch. The Jaecoo J6 RWD gets there in a respectable 8.91 seconds when The Citizen Motoring bolted our Racelogic VBOX test equipment to it at Gerotek. The top speed for both comes in at a claimed 150 km/h, which is more than enough for a block-shaped vehicle that thinks it’s an off-roader.
Where the performance waters do get a bit muddied is in the way of throttle response. Or rather the complete lack of it when punching the accelerator into the floor. Nothing happens for a moment or two, and then it’s as if the message eventually gets delivered and all the power and torque is released. And only then things happen quickly as expected from an electric car.
This issue only appears when there is a sudden call for all the power. Drive the Jaecoo J6 like normal, or stop just short of calling for all the power and it responds just fine. It is something that some, or even many, might be able to live with. I adapted by mashing the throttle to the floor with a little more restraint than usual, but it did irritate me every time I wanted pull away or overtake aggressively and exploit the superpower of driving an electric car.
What wasn’t annoying was the electricity consumption of the Jaecoo J6 AWD. It comes with a slightly smaller 65.69kWh battery, but has a lower claimed rated consumption of 17.9kWh per 100km too. In the real world this meant I could get around 400km on a full charge that cost me only R250 when charging at home. This is a figure that no internal combustion engined SUV, petrol or diesel, can beat.
While I have no doubt there will be those that will fall in love with the Jaecoo J6 based purely on what they see, and then those that will appreciate the everyday running costs of a battery electric vehicle, it’s the price that might have the final say. I doubt the J6 will come in at anything less than R800 000 and this will see it being very much a low volume niche vehicle.
ALSO READ: Intriguing Jaecoo J7 justifies Chery’s decision to divide and rule
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