Geely EX5 review: Electric SUV is great value for money, and not just a distraction

Chinese automaker Geely launched their value-packed EX5 in Australia in March this year, a medium electric SUV set to challenge both the incumbents and other newcomers alike. If sales are an indication of success, the EX5 is off to a great start.

First sales of the EX5 were recorded in our March data, and it has already rocketed to 6th place in the year to date and 3rd place in July. If this early success continues, the EX5 could potentially end 2025 with a podium finish ahead of competitors like the BYD Atto 3 and even the Kia EV5.

Geely’s EX5 lineup is simple to understand, with two variants sharing the same Geely Shortblade 60 kWh LFP battery pack, front-wheel drive setup and a high level of features standard across both. 

The base EX5 Complete starts from $40,990, offering up to 430 km of WLTP range. Stepping up to the Inspire for $44,990 drops the range to 410 km due to larger 19” wheels and 20 mm higher ground clearance, adds a sunroof, powered tailgate and several interior creature comforts which I’ll explore in more detail below. 

My loan car was an EX5 Inspire in Volcanic Grey paint for $600 with Midnight interior, coming to a total of $48,996 driveaway in NSW. This is roughly $1,500 more than the BYD Atto 3 Premium, but significantly cheaper than a base Kia EV5 at close to $57,000 driveaway or the base Model Y for $64,000.

Grab a cuppa and make yourself comfortable as there is a lot to talk about with the Geely EX5.

And if you are interested in V2G with Geely, please read this: Australian network engineer tests V2G with his Geely X5, offers glimpse of the future

Exterior design and storage

I think the Geely EX5 is a fine looking car but does not have any particular standout features, so may blend in among the sea of SUVs on our roads today. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, the looks started to grow on me over the course of a week.

The front bumper is closed off which is a clear indication of being an EV, with a subtle Geely logo positioned above the numberplate and front facing bumper camera. “Geely EX5” gives away the model name on the rear bumper, below a full width light bar that looks good at night time.

Door handles automatically pop out as you approach the vehicle with the key in your pocket, although not until you are within close reach of the driver’s door. This is a good safety feature and saves them popping in and out unnecessarily if you walk past. Like other cars, you can also configure just the driver’s door or all doors to unlock as you approach.

I enjoyed thrusting my open hand towards the door handles from about 2 metres away, trying to time it perfectly. I don’t think anyone was convinced I have magical powers, but at least one of my kids asked if it was a gesture, like the BMW i5 infotainment system has. 

In terms of storage space, Geely has been lazy and not packaged things well enough under the bonnet to include a frunk. With some rearrangement and more streamlined hoses and cables, there would be ample room for one in my opinion, something for Geely to work on for future versions.

On the plus side, boot space is decent, measuring 410 L with the rear seats up, expanding to 1,877 L with the seats folded down. Loading things into the boot was easy too, as the floor is fully flat without any lip to catch things on. A deep storage area is also located underneath the boot floor panel, which can easily be taken out to maximise space if needed.

Inspire variants come with a powered tailgate and sunroof with power sunshade. The front half of the glass roof can be opened through the touchscreen, although wind noise was very loud driving like this even at 50 km/h. The sunshade closes automatically when the car locks, another nice feature preventing extra sun heating the cabin on hot days.

Interior and infotainment

Similar to the outside, the EX5 interior could be mistaken for many other SUVs these days with a large central touchscreen, driver’s display and a generally minimalist cabin. A row of four physical buttons for climate control are located below the touchscreen for activating the front demister, recirculation, auto mode and climate on/off. 

Physical air vent controls are also present although changing the temperature, fan speed or activating the rear demister require using the touchscreen or voice controls. A single customisable ‘*’ button is located on the left-hand side of the steering wheel, I found bringing up the cameras to be the most useful option you can assign.

Front row seats in the EX5 are powered, heated and finished in Geely’s GeeLuxe faux-leather material as standard. Inspire variants get additional creature comforts including ventilation, massaging and memory functions as well as a head up display and 10 additional speakers for the sound system.

I barely use the heated seats in my own car, but really appreciated them along with the standard heated steering wheel when I jumped into the EX5 after hanging up a load of washing on a cold 5-degree morning! Despite frozen fingers at first, I was warm and toasty again after just a few minutes of thawing out.

The second row of the EX5 is spacious and comfortable, with a flat floor and all of the features you would expect such as air vents at the back of the centre console, map pockets, large door bins, fold down armrest with cupholders, USB-A and USB-C charging ports.

Interior storage space is good all round, although the 2 front cupholders in the centre console were too small to fit my usual drink bottle. Luckily the door bins are big enough to hold a decent sized bottle. There is an open area between the front seats underneath the console along with a glovebox, something that seems to be getting rarer these days.

Overall the fit and finish of the cabin feels high quality for a car in this price range. If I was nitpicking, there is plenty of hard plastics used throughout the centre console and doors but I don’t think it detracts too much from the vibe, plus they should be hard wearing for families who will use the car on a daily basis. 

Moving on to the infotainment system, one of the first things I noticed was the knob on the centre console to adjust audio volume. I presumed pressing it would play/pause audio as well, instead pressing it lets you scroll through background picture selection while driving which seems useless to me. 

By default, the majority of the central touchscreen also stays on the background picture, which makes it feel more like a computer desktop than a car screen. A row of tiles can be configured for access to things like tyre pressure, seat massage modes and app shortcuts, along with the audio and climate shortcuts that are always present at the very bottom.

Geely’s built-in navigation system needs some tweaking too. I only used it a few times, but it tried to direct me onto a pedestrian bridge over a train line and also down a walking path that was clearly not a road.

Neither Android Auto nor Apple CarPlay are currently available in the Geely EX5, not even wired. The dodgy navigation system means the upcoming OTA updates bringing wireless Android Auto and CarPlay, supposedly coming in the next few months, are even more important if you rely on navigation and don’t want to use your phone itself.

No Geely, I’m not distracted!

I will get onto the rest of the driving experience next, but first we need to talk about the worst of the EX5’s driver assistance systems, driver monitoring. Within minutes of first driving off I was beeped at and warned on the driver’s display with “Driver distraction detected.”

At first I put this down to diverting my eyes to finish setting up the side mirrors, seat and steering wheel how I like them. However, it soon became obvious the system was problematic when it continued to warn me when I was definitely paying full attention to the road.

Every now and then a different message along the lines of driver’s face not detected popped up, cluing me in to the fact that it might have a problem with my reflective sunglasses. Sure enough, taking them off mostly resolved the issue, although that’s not a solution on a sunny day.

A few days later and still being fed up with the beeps, I tried to tape a piece of cardboard over the camera, thinking it would display the face not detected message once before shutting up. This message appeared as expected, however it continued to beep in a much more annoying tone so I quickly ripped off the tape.

During a trip with my wife in the car, we swapped sunnies and the system didn’t seem to mind those as much, they were tinted but not reflective. This prompted me to dig out and use an old pair of cheap sunnies for the week, first world problems I know. 

This sort of driver monitoring system does not have to be annoying. I was impressed by the equivalent system during my Polestar 4 testing because there were no false positives even wearing the same glasses. Furthermore, it was somehow able to detect just your eyes, as I tested by keeping my head straight while looking sideways and it correctly alerted.

If you need to wear glasses while driving, I would recommend taking the EX5 for a test drive before making a purchase, just in case it has problems with your glasses. Hopefully Geely can fix this system, either through software updates or hardware tweaks if necessary.

Glasses aside, the driver monitoring system in the EX5 is also overzealous and beeps at you when driving safely and normally, for example checking both ways at an intersection, which Riz Akhtar also noticed in his EX5 review.

Serene and efficient driving, once you sort out the beeps

Continuing on with driver monitoring, the speed limit warning in the Geely EX5 was another source of frustration, although nowhere near as bad as the distraction warnings. Like many cars, the speed limit warning system turns on each time the car starts and is prone to false positives through school zones at all hours, exiting car parks and so on.

There is no margin for error either, if you drift over the limit by 1 km/h for a few seconds it’ll start beeping. Thankfully, the speed limit warnings can be turned off through the car settings once you’re out of park. It does take several presses and scrolls through the menus though, so I did not bother for short drives.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, I really enjoyed driving the EX5. Once you get the beeps sorted out, I found it was a very serene and calming vehicle to drive. Geely has tuned the suspension to be soft and comfortable, allowing it to ride over bumpy city streets as well as long highway stretches with ease. Flick on the massaging seats (Serpentine was my favourite mode) and the EX5 cabin is a very pleasant place to spend time. 

Jumping in and driving the EX5 is extremely quick and easy too, there is no unnecessary start/stop button and you can engage drive and take off nearly instantly while the central screen is still booting up with “Flyme Auto.” 

For those wondering, Flyme Auto is described as a smart cockpit operating system, created by Chinese technology company Meizu and also used in several car brands owned by Geely including Galaxy and Lynk & Co. Meizu was founded in 2003, became famous for its MP3 players and was acquired by Geely Holding Group in 2022.

Being front wheel drive with soft suspension, the EX5 is not a sporty car to drive. I pushed through a couple of corners and it was obvious the car did not want to be driven hard. If you enjoy sporty cars like me, look at something else from the Geely stable such as a Zeekr or a Polestar.

I also enjoy strong regenerative braking and one pedal driving, neither of which are available in the Geely EX5. Regen is fairly weak even in the highest setting. It defaults back to medium each drive, so I gave up adjusting it and got used to two pedal driving again. 

Efficiency was a highlight of the EX5, not necessarily Tesla level efficiency but quite good for a medium SUV. Around town I observed 145 Wh/km over 250 km and 7.5 hours driving. On a 260 km highway loop the car returned 159 Wh/km, equating to roughly 375 km from a full battery or 260 km between stops if keeping the battery between 10 and 80 % on a road trip.

When it comes to parking, the 360-degree camera offered as standard in both EX5 variants makes things easy. Confidence is also boosted with centimetre level measurements to nearby objects displayed on the screen.

Charging and ownership

The charge port on the EX5 is located on the driver’s side of the car, just behind the front wheel. This is good for parking nose first in a Tesla Supercharger without blocking any bays, although it will mean draping cables over the bonnet for kerbside charging.

Maximum charging speeds are up to 11 kW AC and 100 kW DC, which is on the low end for new EVs these days. Geely quotes 30 – 80 % charge time in 20 minutes, and confirmed approximately 28 minutes for the more commonly used 10 – 80 %.

EX5 supports vehicle to load (V2L) capable of up to 3 kW output, via an external adapter plugged into the charge port. Geely sells their V2L adapter with 4 power outlets on their website for $209, far cheaper than official Kia or Hyundai adapters which go for close to $600.

Vehicle to vehicle (V2V) output of 6 kW is also mentioned in various places including the car settings, although Geely says this requires a specific V2V cable which is not currently part of the Geely accessory range.

Service intervals for the EX5 are every 12 months or 20,000 km. Geely offers 3, 5 or 7 year pre-paid service plans for $517, $1,190 or $1,642 respectively. These are performed within Geely’s dealer network, currently consisting of 22 locations across the country except Northern Territory, and also concentrated mainly on the east coast for now.

Conclusion

Geely’s first offering in Australia is a strong competitor among a growing number of electric SUVs. The EX5 is great value for money with so many features included that it begs the question, why would anyone buy a fossil fueled dinosaur instead?

For less than $50,000 you get a long list of standard features including heated, ventilated and massaging front seats in the Inspire variant, things that are generally reserved for much more expensive models. In fact, this is the first car I’ve tested with massaging seats, not even the $240k BMW i5 or Genesis GV60 came with them.

No car is perfect though, the worst part of the EX5 is the driver monitoring system as described above, which hopefully Geely can fix. There is also room for improvement with the infotainment software, especially for the built-in navigation and menu layout.

Some of the tech included in other cars is absent, such as sentry mode, dash cam and wireless phone mirroring, supposedly coming soon via an OTA update. Keep in mind when I got my Model 3 about 6 years ago now, it did not come with sentry mode, one pedal driving or a long list of other features added via software updates over the years.

Geely has recently revealed an updated 2026 EX5 in China with a larger 68 kWh LFP battery providing 600 km CLTC range, probably closer to 500 km WLTP. Not many other details have been revealed at this stage, including whether or not this will come to export markets, but it is worth noting.

I am also looking forward to seeing the Geely Riddara RD6 arrive in Australia. Personally I’d rather see more small cars on our roads, but judging by the popularity of the BYD Shark, Australians are keen to embrace electrified utes. If Geely can price the RD6 competitively and supply is plentiful, it could also make its way onto the BEV sales podium.

Table of key specifications for Geely EX5