THE STEERING COLUMN by Leow Ju-Len
With styling from Turin and a cheerful greeting, this Chinese SUV goes beyond basic EV hardware
[SINGAPORE] Every time you get into the Deepal S07, it chirps out a cheery, “Hi! I’m Deepal!”. It’s enthusiastic, slightly over-eager, but also endearing, like it wants to be your friend. It also sets the tone for the entire car, by marking it out as a machine with personality.
That’s more than you can say for most family crossovers, especially in the fast-growing realm of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). But Deepal (which rhymes with “people”, as in the “People’s Republic of China”) seems determined to go beyond a by-the-numbers approach with the S07.
You might say it’s coming in guns blazing, especially since the brand’s parent company is Changan Automobile, a state-owned giant that can trace its roots back to 1862, as a maker of arms for the Chinese military.
But if the S07 was built to slay, it will be more through good looks than ballistic force. Designed in Turin, it’s blessed with the sleek proportions and taut surface language you’d expect from Italy, with frameless windows for an extra dash of style.
The coefficient of drag (which measures how smoothly a car slips through the air) is just 0.258, which suggests that Deepal’s people paid as much attention to aerodynamics as they did to the car’s aesthetics.
Mind you, the sleekness comes at a price. The low roofline means it’s hard to see out of the car, so you’ll lean hard on the blind spot monitors as well as the 360-degree camera system. While it has a battery of driver aids, such as adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist and collision avoidance systems in both directions, the one thing it can’t do is park itself – which means you, the driver, aren’t completely redundant. Not yet, anyway.
Until then, you won’t mind being behind the wheel. The S07 plainly doesn’t set out to thrill, but it gets the fundamentals of comfort and refinement right. The ride is more Mercedes than BMW, in the sense that it’s smooth and composed, and even the accelerator mapping is gentle, so the Deepal avoids the neck-straining eagerness that EVs often come with.
It’s all very calm and civilised on the move, yet the handling is certainly frisky enough to warrant better tyres than the ones the test car came with.
While the car is tuned for serenity, that doesn’t mean it’s slow. A 218 horsepower motor drives the rear wheels, and launches the S07 to 100km/h in 7.9 seconds.
If anything, the cabin is plush enough to make you wonder what the hurry is. A glass roof makes it feel bright and airy, and unlike a certain American rival, Deepal gives you a roller sunshade to block out solar death rays.
It’s palatial in the back, thanks to a flat floor and a lengthy wheelbase. The seats are draped in soft synthetic leather, ambient lighting adds a nice mood, and the yacht-inspired dashboard has a 15.6-inch touchscreen that swivels to face either front occupant, which is important because the real boss of a car isn’t always the person behind the wheel.
Of course, there are gripes. The air-con vents are small and mounted low, which is great if freezing belly fat is your goal. Admittedly, the climate system itself is impressively powerful, so the cabin does get cooled down nicely on hot days.
At 445 litres in capacity, the boot isn’t exactly a smuggler’s delight, but the frunk measures 125 litres, which makes it the biggest I’ve ever seen. I managed to get a small piece of cabin luggage in there with some room to spare, so I’d call it genuinely useful.
I’d say the same of the battery capacity which, at 80 kilowatt-hours, is good for a claimed 475 km. That means once-a-week charging is very much on the cards for the typical driver here.
That’s a competitive range, and at S$199,999 with Certificate Of Entitlement, the S07 does come with competitive pricing, too. In fact, between the sharp looks, the cabin space and the refined drive, it’s impossible not to be impressed by this car. It’s mostly hampered by the fact that Deepal isn’t a household name, though I can see that changing fast if its products continue in this vein. Meanwhile, the S07 would be happy enough to be your friend.
Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.