Back in December 2025, Jaecoo, a sub-brand of Chinese car giant Chery, revealed full details of its adventure-focused J5 EV, along with a sharp $36,990 driveaway launch offer for the first 2,000 customers.
At that time, I had the opportunity to have an initial drive of the car in Sydney, giving an early glimpse of what ownership might look like ahead of its January 2026 arrival.
Having spent a week with it, driving between Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula, I can see how well it’s put together, the amount of comfort features it packs, the practicality of the interior, as well as the bits I really like about it.
Let’s dive into the J5 EV, starting with the price, which, in December, I noted as “delivering unbelievable value in the electric family SUV market”. That, of course, was the $36,990 driveaway for the first 2,000 customers.
It doesn’t look like a sub-$40k SUV. The squared-off grille and clean surfacing give it a faintly European, almost Evoque-like presence.
That is sort of expected, given that Jaecoo is the premium, more adventure-focused sub-brand of Chery.
Sticking to the design outside, it shows lots of curves where needed and even goes into a bit of detail in areas you wouldn’t really expect.
As an example, the LED lighting on the outside and the 18-inch aero wheels give it a modern, techy look, while keeping it fairly rugged, which would stand out to many buyers.
A few people who got in the car during the review period thought it looked great, expecting it to be priced closer to $60,000.
Moving on to the inside, it feels a lot more roomy given the size of the smallish family SUV. There is also a massive 1.45-square-metre glass moonroof with a sunshade.
Driving with the sunshade closed, it was still very roomy. Opening it up, though, and the moonroof floods the inside with light.
In the centre of the front is a 13.2-inch vertical screen, which has most of the car’s functions with a few buttons found underneath it, such as hazard lights and drive mode selector.
One of Jaecoo’s biggest marketed features in the J5 EV was its pet-friendly status. The seats use a synthetic silicone material called Super EcoClean Skin, which is designed to be scratch and stain-resistant.
After a week of coastal dust and coffee runs, they wiped clean quite easily, just a microfibre and some spray did the job.
Space is another win with the J5 – there is a completely flat floor in the back, which makes it quite a roomy five-seater. A tall friend of mine found it quite comfortable in the rear on an hour drive we did in the car over the weekend.
Boot space is also not bad, with two levels to the false floor in the back. All in all, there is 480 litres available along with a 35 litre Frunk – unlike many EVs I’ve seen recently, this one is actually useful.
It even packs a drain plug in case you wanted to use it as an esky to store some drinks in on a camping trip.
When it comes to drive, it’s a fairly zippy 155 kW motor, which produces up to 288 Nm of torque, so it never feels underpowered, whether merging onto the freeway or navigating city traffic.
From this fairly powerful motor, you can easily get the car to sprint from 0-100 km/h in just over 7.7 seconds, making it super easy to overtake on the highway or drive around city traffic.
In suburban traffic, the auto-hold function worked every time, but does require using the brake to engage it, which is not hard to get used to, especially if you are getting into one from an automatic ICE car.
On the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, the ride is soft and comfortable, sort of what most family car buyers would expect. The suspension absorbs road joints and bumps fairly well, but for some, the steering could be quite light and lacking a bit of feedback.
I didn’t find it that bad, and it is certainly a big step up from the previous affordable EVs we’ve tested on the market.
The regenerative braking is also available in three settings. In many cars, I am a big fan of the max regen, but in the J5, I preferred to drive in low regen.
The high mode does have a slight delay when you lift your foot off the accelerator and doesn’t really give the smoother regen experience you may find in a Tesla.
Having said that, it can be fixed via a future OTA, and the team at Jaecoo has previously taken that feedback on board at our initial drive in December.
On the range front, the J5 comes with a 58.9kWh LFP battery. The official WLTP range is 402 km, and during my week of mixed driving, I saw a real-world range closer to 370 km.
Thanks to charging on a three-phase AC charger, I could get speeds of up to 9.5 kW, taking around 6 hours to fully charge the car. At this price point, it’s amazing how far on-board AC charging speeds have come in recent years.
DC charging speeds of up to 130 kW are also on offer, which means a 30-80% top-up takes about 28 minutes.
For a day trip to the Peninsula, it’s more than enough. You won’t feel much need to run out of charge on this popular route with its 370 km real-world range. If you do, there are quite a few 150 kW chargers on the way.
Jaecoo backs the J5 with an eight-year, unlimited-kilometre vehicle warranty, eight years of capped-price servicing and an eight-year battery warranty.
When we first drove the Jaecoo J5 EV in December, I found it such a well-packaged car, and now, having spent a week with it, my thoughts are not much different.
At its launch pricing, the J5 makes a compelling case in the sub-$40k electric SUV space. It’s well equipped, comfortable and practical, with only minor dynamic shortcomings.
If Jaecoo can maintain sharp pricing and continue refining the driving experience via software updates, the J5 could become a serious player in Australia’s growing EV market.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.