2026 Chery Tiggo 9 review: International quick drive

The Chery Tiggo 9, headed our way in a few short weeks, is the largest SUV in Chery’s line-up. It brings with it Chery’s latest Super Hybrid PHEV set-up, offering as much as 170km (NEDC) of electric-only range and 1250km of range in total.

Those specs, and a starting price of just $59,990 plus on-road costs for the Ultimate AWD variant, position it competitively against the likes of the Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy and Toyota Kluger Grande Hybrid, both of which are a fair wedge more expensive and don’t offer plug-in ability. But the Tiggo 9 does give up a fair chunk of size in the process.

In a first for the Tiggo range, it will introduce Chery’s own auto-parking system, which is both accurate and surprisingly quick, as we discovered on a very brief introduction around Chery’s testing facilities.

At launch, just one variant of the Tiggo 9 will be sold, and it comes with something of an eye-opening price tag, starting from just $59,990 before on-road costs. That means it undercuts the entry-level Toyota Kluger GX Hybrid ($62,410 +ORC) and runout models of the larger, eight-seat Hyundai Palisade Elite petrol ($66,800 +ORC), let alone the new Palisade Caligraphy Hybrid ($89,900 +ORC).

It's not like you’re missing out on kit either, the Tiggo 9 comes loaded to the gills with four heated and ventilated seats, massaging front seats, a heated steering wheel, a 15.6-inch touchscreen, 14 Sony speakers, 20-inch alloys, a power tailgate, a panoramic roof with opening sunroof and powered sunshade, and a head-up display.

There are also LED headlight and daytime running lights front and rear, puddle lights, and ambient lighting, as well as satellite navigation, wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, and an intelligent assistant built into the infotainment. Acoustic glass at the front, a 50W wireless phone charger, 360-degree camera, and six-way powered front seats with thigh support extension complete the extensive standard kit list.

Safety features include autonomous emergency braking, emergency lane-keeping assist, adaptive cruise control, and forward collision warning among others, while the Tiggo 9 also boasts 10 airbags, including a driver’s knee airbag and centre airbag alongside those you’d expect.

The Tiggo 9 might be the largest car in the Chery showroom so far, but at this end of the market there is big, and then there is bigger. The Tiggo 9 falls squarely into the former. At 4800mm long, 1930mm wide and with a 2750mm wheelbase, the Tiggo 9 is shorter (overall and between the wheels) than a Mazda CX-80, Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento. 

While the front row is much like any other car, the second-row bench, which splits 40:60, doesn’t offer quite as much leg and knee room as even the smaller Jaecoo J5, but it’s the tiny third row that suffers the most. On our test car, only the passenger-side portion of the rear bench tilts out the way to provide access to the third row, requiring the front passenger seat to move forward in the process. 

Once complete, a good 24 seconds later, you’re left with limited room for an adult to sit in, meaning the third row is purely for children or gymnasts. This places the Tiggo 9 between smaller '5+2' cars like the Nissan X-Trail, and true seven-seaters like the Toyota Kluger. Plus, on the Kluger, which has the same 2+3+2 seat formation as the Tiggo 9, you can at least slide the second-row bench further forward.

Chery hasn’t confirmed details on the boot space, but with all three rows up, you would be lucky to get one large suitcase in sideways. However, fold the third row down and you’re looking at closer to 1000L of space, with as much as 2065L with the second and third rows down, which you can achieve with a single click from the boot of the car.

Due to the limited nature of the test drive in the Tiggo 9, which consisted of a sprint test, a cobbled-road scenario, and a short coned course, there’s a limitation on what exactly we can discern of the Tiggo 9’s day-to-day abilities.

Despite the Tiggo 9 boasting a 1.5-litre turbocharged engine and not one, not two, but three electric motors producing a combined 315kW and 580Nm of torque, the sprint wasn’t exactly lightning quick, but it moved the car’s bulk in a controlled and uneventful manner.

The Tiggo 9 did, at least, despite any fancy suspension gadgets, perform admirably on the choppy surfaces by keeping enough of the vibration away from the cabin, and it braked stably and without fuss.

Handling on the tight coned track revealed the Tiggo 9 to be an able brute, but not one with much personality. It stayed far more stable than expected during the high-speed slalom test, showing impressive composure. But the front end is a bit lazy in the tighter stuff, with a very average turning circle and little by the way of meaningful feedback from the steering wheel.

It is an all-wheel-drive (AWD) car by virtue of having an electric motor on the rear axle, with the engine and twin motors at the front. However, that means no locking diffs of any kind, so it’ll have greater stability in slippery conditions, but isn’t necessarily meant to tackle the serious stuff. 

On the plus side, the Tiggo 9’s sizeable 34kWh battery means it can go up to 170km on electric-only power according to the NEDC cycle, which is an achievement that will catch the eye of those able to charge at home and looking to reduce their fuel bills. With a total range of 1250km, long road trips will be of no concern either.

Large families have a reasonable amount of affordable choice when it comes to seven-seaters, including Chery’s own Tiggo 8 Pro Max, but when it comes to larger models with more grunt and kit, they start to become more of a financial stretch.

The Tiggo 9 admittedly doesn’t feel much larger than its sibling in terms of cabin space, but it makes up for that with more luggage space, a standard kit list as long as your arm, and then that plug-in hybrid drivetrain. 

With a chunky battery and electric-only range of 170km, it stands alone, at least until the BYD Sealion 8 arrives, in offering this level of efficiency and space at this price point. For large families with access to a home charger, it could indeed be a bit of a game-changer by dropping the cost of daily motoring considerably.

It also comes backed with Chery’s seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, seven-year capped-price servicing, and an eight-year battery warranty, as well as up to seven years of roadside assistance, which certainly makes it one of the more reassuring options on the market. 

For those whose kids aren’t all grown-up teenagers, and thus suitable for the third-row seats, the Chery Tiggo 9 is worthy of serious consideration. 

After graduating from the Automotive Journalism master’s course at Coventry University, Mark Rainford embarked upon a career in and around the automotive industry that has taken in the UK, Germany, and now China. Residing in the latter for the majority of the last decade, he is our boots-on-the-ground expert for the world’s most dynamic automotive market.

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