Chery Tiggo 4 vs Ferrari California

What's the difference?

If you’re just looking for an affordable hybrid which will save you money at the pump, the Tiggo 4 will do the trick, but there are so many little things which could be better here, it’s evident you’re getting what you’re paying for.

This makes the Tiggo 4 hybrid a bit of a let down, because the other Cherys I’ve driven recently have been pleasantly surprising given their price-points, not to mention the price-gap between the Tiggo 4 and many of its rivals is nowhere near as large.

The overall score doesn’t necessarily reflect how good this car is, but that’s because we have to factor in safety kit and equipment. Those things matter, sure. But if you really want a Ferrari Portofino, you’ll probably read the drive impressions and look at the photos, both of which should be enough to push you over the line if you’re not quite there yet.

The Ferrari Portofino 2019 model is not just bellissimo to look at, it’s also a more Italian offering. And that’s buonissimo. 

On the outside, I think the Tiggo 4 Hybrid is pretty generic and inoffensive. It shares its 'box-on-wheels' aesthetic with cars like the outgoing Mitsubishi ASX and Hyundai Venue, which, to be fair, have been strong sellers.

It might not be an eye catcher, then, but there’s something to be said for not trying anything controversial, and this is pretty consistent across Chery’s range. In fact, compared to some brands in the market, Chery is doing a solid job of design consistency for its mainline SUVs.

Highlights on the outside include the enormous grille and contemporary LED light strip across the rear.

On the inside things also look pretty swish for this compact SUV category. The seats immediately jump out as a highlight, big and lavishly trimmed in comparatively soft synthetic stuff. The glitzy steering wheel and dual-screen layout continues from other Chery products and the dash design is tidy, if a little generic.

It’s a more angry-looking entry-level car for the iconic Italian brand, but not in an ugly way. 

Sure, some angry faces aren’t pretty. But I bet if Elle Macpherson or George Clooney got cranky at you, you’d still probably find them attractive. And so it is with the Portofino, which has a mildly menacing front end, some scintillating curves over its taut metalwork, and a pair of high-set hips with bold tail lights. 

It is undeniably more muscular than the old California was. And filling the wheel arches are 20-inch wheels, which measure eight inches wide at the front (with 245/35 rubber) and ten inches wide (285/35) at the back.

This isn’t a compact car, either - with dimensions of 4586mm long, 1938mm wide and 1318mm tall, the Portofino is longer than some mid-sized SUVs. But boy, does it pull its size off well. 

And like many of the beachside manors in the seaside town for which the new model is named, you can shutter yourself in to combat bad weather. The folding electronic roof system takes 14 seconds to raise or lower, and can be operated at speeds up to 40km/h.

I actually think it looks better with the roof on. It’s not often you can say that about a convertible…

I can see this car having a lot of wow factor on a dealer forecourt but up close things are less good. The software on the screens is pretty ordinary; hardly the sharpest, fastest or most logically laid-out. There’s a selection of clumsy-looking themes, and while the multimedia portion has a logical smartphone-style main menu, beneath lies an array of confusing and inconsistently-labelled sub-menus.

The digital dash could be smoother and better looking and it’s a bit confusing to use with the poorly labelled buttons on the steering wheel.

The centre console area is finished in a gloss finish, which is easy to scratch or smear with fingerprints. Up front underneath the main screen is an entirely separate dot-matrix style climate control panel with actual physical buttons. It looks a bit clunky compared to some other solutions on the market, but at least it’s clearly labelled and straightforward to use.

Somewhat infuriatingly, though, interacting with this climate panel brings up a menu on the touchscreen which you don’t need and it takes several seconds to go away. Why?

The cabin is reasonably practical from there, though. There are decent bottle holders in each front door and a further two atop the console. There’s a pass-through beneath, good for handbags and the like. There are some strange additions, like an upright holster with rubberised sides which seems to be for a phone, and behind the shifter there’s a key fob-sized cut-out, but it’s gloss finished, so it will scratch if you actually use it.

The wireless phone charger is tucked away underneath, which makes your phone hard to get at in a pinch, and easy to forget when you exit.

Ergonomically, this car is a bit strange. The seat base is very high, so for me (at 182cm tall) even with the driver’s seat set to its lowest position, my head feels close to the roof. Plus, I’m peering down on the instruments, rather than have them at a comfortable height.

However, there are soft-touch surfaces adorning the doors, which can’t be said for every car in this segment and the rear seat hasn’t been forgotten, either.

I fit pretty comfortably behind my own driving position in terms of knee and headroom and the plush seat trim continues.

There’s a nearly flat floor, so while it’s a reasonably narrow vehicle, at least someone in the centre position will have somewhere to put their feet.

On the amenity front for rear passengers, there’s a small bottle holder in each door, pockets on the backs of the front seats, a weird storage tray and USB port on the back of the centre console and a drop-down armrest with two shallow cupholders. There’s just a single adjustable air vent for rear passengers, so they’ll have to fight over who gets the airflow.

The boot surprised me. It looks tiny, but the brand claims it weighs in at 470 litres. On top of this, the floor is a strange shape because the 12-volt battery is under the floor and doesn’t quite fit level.

However, when I went to load the full three-piece CarsGuide test luggage set, I was surprised to find it fit snugly, with the tailgate able to shut without a problem. I was also impressed to find a space-saver spare wheel and not just a repair kit under the floor.

You aren’t buying a Ferrari if you want the most practical car for the money, but that doesn’t mean there isn't some semblance of pragmatism to the Portofino.

There are four seats. I know, it’s amazing to think there’s a point in making the Portofino a 2+2 seater, but according to Ferrari, owners of the outgoing California model used those back seats about 30 per cent of the time.

I wouldn’t want to be in the back row that much. It’s designed to play host to little kids or small adults, but anyone nearing my height (182cm) will be very uncomfortable. Even tiny adult males (like fellow auto scribe Stephen Corby, for example) reckon it’s tight and not a pleasant place to be back there. (link to existing review). But if you have kids, there are two ISOFIX child seat anchor points.

The boot space is not huge, but with 292 litres of cargo capacity with the roof up, there’s enough room for a weekend’s worth of luggage for a couple (Ferrari says you can fit three cabin bags in that configuration, or two with the roof down). And - a tidbit for the actual customers out there- it has more luggage capacity than you get in a new Corolla hatch (217L). 

As for cabin comfort, the front seats are sumptuous, and there are some nice elements like the 10.25-inch infotainment screen, which is pretty easy to use, if a little slow to load when you’re skipping between screens or trying to key locations into the sat-nav system.

There are also two 5.0-inch digital screens in front of the driver, mounted either side of the rev counter, and the front passenger can have their very own display with speed, revs and gear on show. It’s a neat option.

While it may have some long-distance touring pretence, the Portofino isn’t a beacon of loose-item storage. It has a pair of cupholders, and there’s a small storage tray that will fit a smartphone.

It would be silly to think that people who can afford a Ferrari aren’t conscious of finance. Most people who can buy a car like this are very specific about what they will and won’t spend their hard-earned cash on, but according to Ferrari, about 70 per cent of projected Portofino purchasers will be buying their very first Prancing Horse. Lucky them!

And at $399,888 (list price, before on-road costs), the Portofino is as close to an affordable new Ferrari as you’ll get. 

Standard equipment includes that 10.25-inch media screen that runs Apple CarPlay (an option, of course) and includes sat nav, DAB digital radio, and acts as a display for the reversing camera with parking guidance lines, plus there are front and rear parking sensors as standard.

The standard wheel package is a 20-inch set, and of course you get leather trim, 18-way electronically adjustable front seats, plus heated front seats and dual-zone climate control, and there’s proximity unlocking, too (keyless entry) with a push-button starter on the steering wheel. Auto LED headlights and auto wipers are standard, as is cruise control and an auto-dimming rear-view mirror. 

Speaking of Ferrari’s fantastic Formula One-inspired wheel (with paddle shifters), the version with the carbon fibre trim and integrated shift LEDs fitted to our car cost an extra $8300. Oh, and if you do want CarPlay, that'll be $6793 (which is more than the best Apple computer you can buy), and that reversing camera will add $6950 to the price. WHATTTT???

Some of the other options fitted to our car included the Magneride adaptive dampers ($8970), the LCD passenger display ($9501), adaptive front lighting ($5500), a premium hi-fi sound system ($10,100), and a foldable rear-seat backrest ($2701), among plenty of other interior elements. 

The as-tested price for our just-under-four-hundred-grand Ferrari, then, was actually $481,394. But who's counting?

The Portofino is available in 28 different colours (including seven blue hues, six grey options, five red and three yellow paint choices).

The Tiggo 4 hybrid variants pair a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with a relatively large electric motor housed in a transaxle-style unit driving the front wheels. In effect, it's continuously variable without being a much-derided CVT auto.

Weirdly, Chery doesn’t state combined power figures, just separate ones for each power source, with the engine producing 72kW/120Nm and the electric motor producing 150kW/310Nm.

You’ll note the electric motor is much more powerful than the engine, which has an effect on the way this car drives.

The 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged petrol V8 engine produces 441kW of power at 7500rpm and 760Nm of torque from 3000rpm. That means it has a sizeable 29kW more power (and 5Nm more torque) than the Ferrari California T it replaces.

Plus the 0-100 acceleration time is better, too; it will now hit highway speed in 3.5 seconds (was 3.6sec in the Cali T) and moves past the 200km/h marker in just 10.8sec, if you believe Ferrari’s claim.

Top speed is “more than 320km/h”. Didn’t get a chance to test that, sadly, nor the 0-200km/h time.

The kerb weight for the Portofino is 1664 kilograms, while the dry weight is 1545kg. The weight distribution is 46 per cent front, 54 per cent rear. 

The whole point of this plugless hybrid set-up is fuel efficiency and on paper it’s not as good as some rivals.

The official combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) economy number is 5.4L/100km, but we easily beat that claim on test with a figure of 4.5L/100km. Worth noting that average came primarily from urban and expressway driving. It seems the hybrid transmission might require significantly more combustion input in freeway scenarios, hence the higher official claim.

A 51-litre fuel tank translates to a 944km range using the official economy figure and around 1100km based on our on-test average.

The twin-turbo-V8-powered Ferrari Portofino uses a claimed 10.7 litres per 100 kilometres. Not that fuel costs are a big concern if you’re spending $400k on a car. 

But that’s more than, say, a Mercedes-AMG GT, (9.4L/100km; 350kW/630Nm) but not as much as a Mercedes-AMG GT R (11.4L/100km; 430kW/700Nm). And the Ferrari has more power than both of those, and it's quicker, too (and more expensive…).

Fuel-tank size for the Ferrari Portofino is 80 litres, enough for a theoretical mileage range of 745km.

The Tiggo 4 is a strange one. This hybrid one in particular has me in two minds.

My initial impression was not a good one. The high seating position makes you feel as though you’re sitting on the car rather than in it, and the overly electrically-assisted steering removes you from feeling what’s going on at the front wheels.

Even the pedal feel is wooden, with the car having to modulate the electric and combustion drive components and blended regenerative braking at arms length, leaving the driver with little in the way of feedback.

The ride isn’t one of the worst I’ve had in recent years, with an overall soft enough edge to it, but it also doesn’t feel very sophisticated, and harsher over the rear than it is in the front, giving it an unbalanced character. On top of this, our test car had a couple of intermittent rattling noises in the B-pillar (around where the belt retainer is) as well as somewhere in the rear.

Acceleration is pretty impressive at speeds under 80km/h, however, with plenty of power instantly available from the electric motor, although this has the side-effect of being able to easily overwhelm the Sailun tyres this top-spec Tiggo 4 ships on.

One thing I quite like about the Tiggo 4, however, is how smooth it is. The seemingly primarily electric drive is excellent, particularly at lower speeds where this car is at its best, surging forward largely in silence with no annoyances from a fiddly transmission.

Even the way it blends the combustion power in is seamless, even compared to a Toyota, for example, with the engine distantly buzzing away only when required.

It's impressive that unlike the MG3 and MG ZS which have similarly powerful electric motors but run out of juice and lose a bit of punch when the hybrid battery is low, the Tiggo 4 does a better job of managing its battery reserve level, making sure the strong electric power is always available. This might mean the engine idles higher and longer, but with decent sound deadening, it’s not something you notice much.

Overall the Tiggo 4 is okay to drive. The hybrid components impressed me enough, but these are tarnished by sub-par driver feedback and inputs, handling, tyres and some ergonomic issues.

Compared to the California T it replaces, the new model is stiffer, has a lighter all-aluminium chassis, gets a reworked transmission and also includes an electronically controlled limited-slip differential. 

It’s faster, has more tech - like electronic exhaust bypass valves to make it sound better - and it's gorgeous. 

So it's fast and fun? You bet. It has electronic power steering, which mightn’t be as tactile in terms of road feel as a vehicle with a hydraulic steering setup, but it is rapid in its reactivity, and arguably offers better point-and-shoot ability as a result. Old diminutive Corby criticised it for being very light and somewhat lacking, but I reckon that as an entry point to the brand, it serves as a very manageable steering setup.

The adaptive magnetorhelogical dampers do a magnificent job in allowing the Portofino to ride over rough patches of road, including pockmarks and potholes. It hardly ever feels ruffled, although there is some scuttle shake to the windscreen, as is often found in convertible cars.

The most surprising element to this Ferrari is that it is supple and reserved at times, but can turn into a manic machine when you want it to.

With the Manettino drive-mode dial on the steering wheel set to Comfort, you will be rewarded with sedate progress and cushioning from the road surface below. In Sport mode, things are all a bit more growly and rigid. I personally found the transmission in this mode, when left in Auto, was eager to upshift to help save fuel, but still responded pretty quickly when I put my foot down hard.

Turning Auto off means it’s you, the pedals and the paddles, and the car won’t overrule your decisions. If you want to see just how realistic that 10,000rpm tacho top is, you can test it in first, second, third… oh wait, you need to keep your licence? Just keep it to first. 

Its braking is tremendous, with aggressive application resulting in seatbelt-tensioning response. Plus not only was the ride comfortable, the balance and control of the chassis was both predictable and inherently manageable in corners, and there was plenty of grip, even in the damp. 

With the roof down, the noise of the exhaust is exhilarating under hard throttle, but I found it droned a bit under less-urgent acceleration, and in most instances of ‘regular driving’ it actually just sounded loud, rather than lush. 

Things that were annoying? The throttle response is dull for the first part of the pedal travel, making for some testing moments in traffic. Not helping that is the fact the engine stop-start system is exceptionally overactive. And that there’s no fuel use readout on the digital trip computer screen - I wanted to see what the car was claiming in terms of fuel use, but I couldn’t.

There is no ANCAP or Euro NCAP crash-test score available for any Ferrari model, and it’s fair to state that safety tech isn’t the reason you buy a Ferrari. 

The Portofino, for instance, has dual front and front-side airbags, and an advanced stability control system… but that’s about it. 

Things like auto emergency braking (AEB), lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert are all unavailable. 

The Tiggo 4 Hybrid is offered with a seven-year/unlimited km warranty, seven years of roadside assist and seven years of capped price servicing with an eight year and unlimited kilometre warranty for the high-voltage battery.

The servicing is required once a year or 15,000km, with each service costing $299 for the first five years. It jumps from there, with a particularly expensive service at $736.62, dragging the yearly average for the warranty period up to $360 a year.

It’s a little pricier than Toyota, for example, but very reasonably priced compared to most.

Ferrari servicing won’t cost you a cent for the first seven years, and that’s whether you hold on to it or sell it - the new owner will have access to complementary maintenance for whatever is left of the initial seven-year period.

The standard warranty offer from Ferrari is a three-year plan, but if you sign up for the New Power15 program, Ferrari will cover your car for up to 15 years from the first registration date, and that includes cover for major mechanical components including the engine, transmission, suspension and steering. It reportedly costs $4617 for V8 models like this - a drop in the financial ocean at this price point.