Chery Omoda E5 vs Polestar 3

What's the difference?

Okay, this is getting crazy. It feels like barely a week of 2024 is going by without another value-focused, pure-electric SUV hitting the Australian new-car market. 

And this is the latest, the Chery Omoda E5, a compact, five-seater with the performance and range to challenge some other relatively recent arrivals.

It joins the internal combustion Omoda 5, variations of which have proliferated in the roughly 18 months it’s been on sale here.

This is CarsGuide’s first look and we’ve assessed everything from value and practicality to safety and driving performance. So, stay with us to see if this EV could be your entree into the world of battery-electric SUVs.

If you know anything about superheroes, you'll know the biggest and best are always born out of adversity. And while it might not be wearing a cape (though the big rear roof spoiler makes it look a bit like Superman in flight), Polestar is very much hoping its new electric SUV will be the hero it has been waiting for.

Cursed to commence life in Australia with the good but compromised Polestar 2, which launched as a lift-back sedan (remember those?), and which felt a lot like a repurposed internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicle inside, complete with a bulky transmission tunnel that cut rear-seat legroom in half, it has long felt like the second wave of Polestar vehicles would be the one to put the brand on the map.

That wave has at last broken in Australia, with the Polestar 3 finally here. It's a large SUV (good start), but it promises not to drive like one (even better). And in the Long Range Single Motor guise we've tested here, it promises to travel more than 700km on a full charge.

So, is this the vehicle that will kick off the Swedish brand's run in Australia?