Aston Martin DB12 vs Gac Aion Ut

What's the difference?

Typically when a car company makes a bold claim in their press release it's hyperbole designed simply to grab attention. But in the case of the DB12, Aston Martin truly has built something different than before, elevating it beyond its previous ‘Grand Tourer’ status.

While ‘Super Tourer’ may be a bit dramatic in name, this is a very impressive car across the board. It’s fast, fun, luxurious, comfortable, opulent, stylish and liveable, so while it may require a heavy financial investment, you are duly rewarded.

Plus you also get to pretend to be James Bond…

The Aion UT is a cleverly-specified little hatchback and a great entry-point into electric motoring. The software needs a bit of work from a usability perspective, plus the spongy ride and cutesy styling might not be for everyone. 

However, with strong points including driving range, cabin space and value, there’s even a pitch for it in some cases to be an only car compared to most of its price rivals, which are more likely to be thought of as a second car runabout in a two-car garage.

The pick of the range is definitely the entry-level Premium. It comes in at a headline-grabbing price with specs to blow rivals out of the water, while only missing out on a few luxuries.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

Personally, I felt like Aston Martin peaked with its ‘DB’ design nearly two decades ago with the DB9. It was a masterpiece of simplicity, elegance and heritage and the subsequent DB11 just looked more fussy and complicated for the sake of being different.

The DB12 manages to correct that mis-step from the designers, getting back to the classic silhouette of an Aston Martin, maintaining the trademark elements (specifically the unique grille shape) and the elegance of simplicity.

Aston Martins don’t need to be attention-grabbing like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Instead, they attract attention with an understated but unmissable presence that just attracts eyeballs. You don’t need to know anything about cars to know that the DB12 is a very expensive, luxury sports coupe - it says all that the second you get a look at it.

The interior of DB12 looks and feels every bit as prestigious as the exterior does. High-quality materials have been used throughout and there is a level of fit and finish that elevates beyond most other cars on the market. It feels like a hand-made car, built with patience and detail, rather than something rushed down a production line.

The cabin design itself manages to feel both classical and modern, in the same way the exterior takes inspiration from Aston Martins of previous years but gives them a 21st century update.

GAC tells us the UT hatch was designed in Milan, Italy, but it also isn’t ashamed of the Chinese influence on its overall appearance, like the ultra-short bonnet and Chinese city-car style face.

Along the side it has a modern, aerodynamic profile, and the ultra-short overhangs and long wheelbase maximise the amount of room for batteries under the floor and interior space.

The rear feels a lot like a modern Mini, with its bulbous tailgate and protruding light clusters, spiced up with a sporty spoiler piece jutting out.

It’s not a bad looking thing and it’s available in an array of fun colours.

On the inside it seems to follow the established rule-book of Chinese automakers, with plush trims, big screens with minimal physical buttons as well as a contemporary two-spoke steering wheel.

There’s a trendy floating console which hosts the cupholders and wireless charger on the Luxury grade, and an array of interesting patterns and textures through the doors and dash which you wouldn’t have once seen on a car at this price-point.

However, it is worth noting that while the seats are quite nice, and the steering wheel is a stand-out touchpoint, the trims on the doors and across the dash-top are hard plastics, more so than some of this car’s rivals.

Inside Aston Martin’s designers have understood the typical customer isn’t a Gen Alpha who does everything on their smartphone, so there’s a neat array of proper buttons, switches and dials to take care of all the functions without taking your eyes off the road. If you are into technology you may be disappointed by the relatively small infotainment screen, but from a usability perspective it does the job well.

As you’d expect the level of fit and finish is impressive and the diamond quilting on the leather seats looks exceptional. The seats themselves are comfortable and supportive, with generous cushioning rather than the sportier, less comfortable seats found in purebred sports cars.

The DB12 is a 2+2, with a pair of seats in the rear, but to be frank you’d need to be desperate to use them. They are ‘emergency use only’ seats that will deeply compromise the front seat occupants just to squeeze anyone in the back.

In terms of interior space, the Aion UT stands out with its spacious cabin. At 182cm tall, I am easily able to find a comfortable seating position, and visibility out the front sides and rear, while not as good as some small SUVs, isn’t bad.

There’s lots of headroom, and while I mentioned the hard plastic door cards before, there’s enough padding everywhere your elbows are going to touch to make it feel a bit nicer than perhaps it is.

The main drawback of this car for me is the lack of tactile buttons and the frustrating software.

The main screen isn’t particularly well utilised, being taken up by either a background or the navigation map, with an array of typically small shortcuts across the bottom for important features like the climate control or settings menus.

You can pre-set a few information panels which sit above the shortcut bar as in many rival cars and there’s also a shortcut tray which can be hosted on the driver’s side and configured with a variety of shortcuts and settings.

It’s just a bit clumsy to use, and the array of poorly-labelled settings menus for things like active safety equipment feel needlessly complicated.

I’d love to see this car with physical controls for climate and multimedia to make it easier to live with.

Up front the storage is decent. There are big pockets in the doors and a large storage tray between the driver and front passenger thanks to a flat floor. There’s also a slightly weird storage box under the touchscreen which has a net inside, good for more delicate objects you don’t want flying around the cabin.

On the floating console there are two cupholders which are a bit too shallow for my liking, and the wireless charger feels almost pointless because its made of a hard plastic, so your phone just slides right off in the corners. The cabled outlets are hidden beneath which allows for tidy cable management and the centre armrest console box is a healthy size.

The rear seat is comparatively basic, although touches on the key points. Its main advantage is how generous the space is. My frame was able to fit behind my own driving position with heaps of room for my knees, and just enough room for my head despite the dip in the roof for the sunroof shade in the Luxury-grade car we tested. There may be even more headroom in the base car.

The flat floor makes the space useful even for three across in a pinch and there’s a drop-down armrest with (again, shallow) cupholders. There are pockets on the back of both front seats and smallish pockets in each door. The array of soft trims continues, too, and the back of the centre console features a partially adjustable air vent. Luxury spec cars get a single USB rear power outlet.

As with many Chinese cars in this segment, the generous rear seat space comes at a cost to the boot. It measures just 321 litres, which is slightly smaller than its main opponents in this category, although larger than some hatchbacks like the Toyota Corolla, for example.

It has its advantages, though. The floor is two-tiered, and can offer a flat load area with the rear seats folded down, or a deeper boot in its lower position. Underneath there’s a cutaway good for charging equipment and the tyre repair kit (sorry, no spare wheel in here).

Unlike some EVs, the Aion UT doesn’t get a frunk (front boot) for additional storage.

The GAC Aion UT starts from $31,990, before on-road costs, for the entry-level Premium grade, which makes it the third-most affordable EV you can buy in Australia after the city-sized BYD Atto 1 and the entry-level version of the BYD Dolphin.

It sits closer to price-parity with the GWM Ora, but is significantly more affordable than the rear-drive MG4 and more spec-competitive top-grade BYD Dolphin.

The bigger threat to the Aion UT is that a lot of buyers will be willing to spend slightly more to get into one of the most affordable electric small SUVs, like the BYD Atto 2 or Jaecoo J5.

Still, GAC makes a solid pitch for its hatch, which offers a higher spec level than its most direct price rivals.

For example, the Aion UT is more powerful than the entry-level Dolphin and Ora while offering a higher level of interior equipment. 

Even the just-arrived front-drive MG4 Urban also starts at $31,990, but that’s for a version with significantly less driving range.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say the entry-level version of the Aion UT (the confusingly-named Premium) is probably the pick of the two variant range.

Standard equipment levels on this car include 17-inch alloy wheels, LED lighting all around, synthetic leather interior trim with heated and power adjust front seats, a 14.6-inch multimedia touchscreen with online connectivity and built-in nav as well as wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

There’s also an 8.88-inch digital instrument cluster, heated steering wheel and the full array of safety kit.

With the same power and battery size, this leaves only arguably unnecessary luxuries for the Luxury grade, like a wireless phone charger, ventilated driver’s seat, auto dimming rear vision mirror with auto power folding wing mirrors, a powered tailgate and of course, a panoramic sunroof (with shade!).

Aston Martin was once famous for its V12 engines, but with the brand changing hands so many times over the years and the pressure to develop increasingly expensive powerful, yet fuel-efficient engines means the brand now outsources some of its powertrains. So while the brand is developing a new V12 engine, the DB12 is powered by the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 built by Mercedes-AMG.

While Aston Martin fans may bemoan the use of a German engine in this British car, the truth is it’s a much better engine than the previous V12 used in the DB11, Vantage and other models. It offers up 500kW/800Nm and delivers all that performance in a broad spread across the rev range (unlike the old V12).

It gives the DB12 a sportier, more urgent and responsive driving character than its predecessors and helps to explain the new ‘Super Tourer’ name. Aston Martin claims it can run 0-100km/h in just 3.6 seconds and has a top speed of 325km/h.

The Aion UT has a front-mounted electric motor producing 150kW/210Nm. That’s plenty punchy for any hatchback at this price, and I like the way the brand hasn’t messed around with a sub-100kW motor in the base variant to push prospects towards the top-spec car.

It’s more powerful than all of its closest rivals and at the time of writing you’ll have to spend four to six thousand dollars more to get into something equivalent from BYD, Chery, Jaecoo, Leapmotor or MG.

It even has a claimed 0-100km/h sprint time as low as 7.3 seconds.

Aston Martin claims a combined fuel cycle return of 12.2 litres per 100km, which is not what you would call sipping the unleaded, but given this is a large, grand tourer (sorry, Aston Martin, Super Tourer) it’s actually a solid return. If you’re in the market for a car like this, anything sub 15L/100km should be considered acceptable; if you’re worrying about emissions or the cost of petrol you probably shouldn’t be buying a $455k sports car.

Unfortunately we didn’t have the DB12 long enough to get a real-world fuel economy figure, so we’ll just have to take Aston Martin’s word for it.

With its 78-litre tank the DB12 does have a theoretical driving range of approximately 630km.

The Aion UT has a 60kWh lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which grants it a WLTP-certified 430km of driving range.

That’s more than its closest rivals, like the entry-level Ora Standard Range (310km), BYD Dolphin Essential (410km) or BYD Atto 2 (345km).

Claimed efficiency is 16.4kWh/100km and the car I tested returned a consumption of 14.0kWh/100km over a 130km route of mixed conditions, which isn’t bad at all.

Charging speeds are less impressive, but realistically appropriate for the relatively small battery. The peak DC charging capacity of 87kW means a charge time which the brand quotes at 24 minutes, but this is from 30-80 per cent. Expect closer to 40 minutes for a 10-80 per cent charge.

AC charging is decent, at 11kW. This should have you charging from 10-80 per cent between four and five hours.

The defining characteristic of a ‘Grand Tourer’ is that while fast, they aren’t typically agile and as responsive as a sports car. In other words, a grand tourer is best suited to a long, cross-country trip on faster, flowing roads, rather than a winding mountain pass or twisty switchbacks.

So, in keeping with the ‘Super Tourer’ theme that the brand is selling, the DB12 is notably more responsive and therefore more engaging to drive across any condition. It still has the comfortable, laid-back nature of a ‘GT’ but when you want to have some fun it’s capable of hiding its size and feeling very sporty.

The handling is highlighted by how quickly the front end of the car reacts. Typically with this front-engined 'GT' cars you feel like you're sitting at the very back of the car, so it feels slow to respond to inputs and that can create a feeling of laziness. But not in the DB12. The front end feels sharp and responsive, making you feel like you are right at the centre of the action.

It's helped by the engine that feels lighter than the old V12s but more urgent with its power delivery, too. It adds to that feeling of a more sporty and focused driver's car, rather than a 'GT' for just soaking up the kays. It shouldn't be surprising though, AMG doesn't really build relaxed, laid-back engines, rather ones designed for maximum excitement - and that's what the DB12 delivers when you bury your right foot.

Remarkably, it also plays the role of ‘daily driver’ well too. Which is an unusual way to think of a car like this, but for those fortunate enough to have the means to afford it, the DB12 could ferry you from home to work and back again in luxury and comfort.

The drive experience can be where a lot of Chinese cars fall down but I walked away less frustrated by the Aion UT.

That’s not to say it will behave as you might expect a low-slung hatchback to. The suspension, for example, is extremely soft as it maintains its original Chinese-market state-of-tune.

This makes the car waft over imperfections on city roads. And in that sense it offers supreme ride comfort in the scenarios it was designed for. However, at the extremes, like some speed bumps, or particularly deep pot holes there can be a surprisingly violent re-bound sending a thud through the cabin.

The other trade-off for soft suspension is less body control. I was surprised to find that the Aion UT holds it together mostly well on a flat country B-road, but when undulations and big dips introduce themselves, the soft suspension can be too slow to react, making the car lose confidence in higher-speed open road scenarios we’re more used to in Australia.

The steering, like many electric cars in this category, is relatively heavily electrically assisted. This makes it light and easy to adjust at low speeds for easy park and maneuverability in the confines of a city. It loses a little bit of road-feel at higher speeds but the Aion UT’s steering is far from the least connected I’ve experienced recently.

One thing it can’t be criticised for is a lack of power. With 150kW instantaneously available the Aion UT has some serious poke and while the ChaoYang tyre package is tuned more for efficiency than grip, it’s again not one of the worst I’ve driven with.

One thing which helps the whole experience along is this car’s hatchback layout. With the weight of the battery low and squat and the wheels all the way out to the edges of the frame, the Aion UT inherently handles decently compared to an electric crossover or small SUV.

Like all Chinese cars, the UT has a host of occasionally frustrating driver aids, which you can read about in the Safety section below. While I was inclined to turn some of the features off after testing them, the alerts are relatively quiet and non-invasive.

Is the UT any good to drive? It’s not bad for the segment, I was largely pleased with how it handled and the power on offer, and while it still has its annoyances, they’re not big deal-breakers. 

The MG4 rear-drive is a better allrounder, while the GWM Ora isn’t as good. I’d say it’s on par with the BYD Dolphin, but they excel in different areas. The Dolphin's a bit sharper in terms of handling but the Aion UT is more comfortable.

As with many Chinese cars the list of active safety equipment is long but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly well calibrated.

Standard gear includes the key stuff like auto emergency braking (AEB), lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and adaptive cruise control. There are also rarer features for an affordable car like this including traffic sign recognition, door open warning, auto high beams and front cross-traffic alert.

On the parking front you get a 360-degree parking camera view as well as front and rear proximity sensors.

There's also an annoying driver monitoring system and one I haven’t seen much in the form of an occupant warning system, which seems to imagine you’re not wearing a seatbelt when you are.

It’s not the only safety system I found myself reaching to turn off. The lane keep assist could occasionally be a bit heavy-handed and the traffic sign alert was typically frustrating. This, sadly, is what we’ve come to expect from these types of systems from many Chinese automakers.

It’s not the most annoying system I’ve used, though, and the alerts are quiet enough and far enough apart that they aren't as intrusive as they can be in some rivals. You can also adjust the tolerance of some of the systems in the (needlessly complicated) menus to make them less annoying.

At the launch, the Aion UT was yet to be rated by ANCAP.

The standard Aston Martin warranty covers three years/unlimited kilometres, which is unusually short by current industry standards; a curious case of the top end of the market lagging behind the mainstream brands.

Servicing is handled by individual dealers, so there’s no set cost structure, but the intervals are every 12 months/16,000km. Instead you’ll need to discuss what sort of costs are involved with keeping your DB12 running smoothly when you speak to a salesperson.

GAC covers this electric hatch with an eight-year and unlimited kilometre warranty, while the brand’s “magazine battery 2.0” is covered by a separate eight-year and 200,000km warranty. Five years of roadside assistance is included.

The Aion UT needs to be serviced once a year or 15,000km. The service price schedule extends all the way out to 240,000km with yearly visits costing between $199 and $640 but for the life of the warranty the average yearly cost comes in at $352.

There are currently 19 GAC dealers in Australia, confined mainly to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with a single store in Perth and an outlier in Cairns. No representation yet in Tassie, Canberra, the Northern Territory or SA.