What's the difference?
Chery’s explosive growth in Australia has been thanks to its range of affordable SUVs in some of Australia’s most in-demand categories.
Lately the brand has been expanding into the most in-demand segment of them all - hybrids. To that end, the Tiggo 4 Hybrid seems to tick a lot of boxes.
It’s relatively affordable, looks modern and offers plenty of features. Plus, unlike other Chery hybrids, it’s not a plug-in.
However, to see why I found the Tiggo 4 Hybrid a little disappointing - read on.
Hyundai Venue, Mazda CX-30, Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, Toyota Corolla Cross… the list of box-fresh SUVs that have cropped up in the last decade could go on and on, and it’s no secret why.
SUVs are absolutely hot property right now and everyone wants to get onto the bandwagon with the right model and the right size, which explains the all-new Honda ZR-V.
Positioned above the HR-V but below the CR-V, Honda calls the ZR-V its mid-size SUV competitor that is designed to steal sales away from the in-demand Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4.
So, does this new Honda really have what it takes to take on the best-selling SUVs in Australia?
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.
Should you consider the Honda ZR-V if you are looking for a new family SUV? Absolutely, it offers the right blend of practicality, panache and poise to make it a serious consideration over the hot-selling Mazda CX-5.
What might dissuade some buyers is the smaller dimensions, but seriously, the ZR-V is a poster child for ‘making the most of what you got’. There are a few other nit-picky things about the new Honda, but those cons (collectively) aren't a deal-breaker.
Sorry, Civic Type R, the 2023 ZR-V might be the best car Honda Australia has in its line-up right now, and it deserves at least your attention and consideration, even if that doesn’t evolve into your outright commitment.
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.
Honda is on a bit of a tear in terms of design, at least to my eye.
All models in its line-up look modern, sophisticated and properly upmarket. And yes, that’s counting the Accord mid-size sedan, too.
The ZR-V is certainly no different, and while it does crib more than a few design cues from the likes of the Porsche Macan and Maserati Grecale, for a mainstream mid-size SUV, that’s not necessarily a criticism.
The front end is characterised by tall headlights and a chiselled bonnet, but the component that draws the eye the most is the front grille.
With a trapezoidal shape and vertical slats, at first glance the ZR-V’s toothy grin sort of looks like the aforementioned Grecale, and it's a departure from the face of the Civic (on which it is based).
I’m still not one hundred per cent sold on the front styling of the ZR-V. It doesn’t look too cohesive or consistent with the rest of the Honda Australia line-up (the HR-V and CR-V SUVs have a horizontal-themed grille), but it’s not ugly.
Step to the side and there are shades of Macan thanks to its long bonnet, bulbous bodywork and short overhangs.
I like the top-spec VTi LX’s body-coloured wheel arches, too, invoking a little BMW vibe to make the ZR-V feel a touch more upmarket.
However, the rear is my favourite element of the ZR-V, thanks to a funky tail-light design, nicely-sized spoiler and a subtle contrasting diffuser with integrated twin exhaust outlets.
Step inside, and those familiar with the new Civic will feel right at home thanks to a honeycomb dashboard insert that hides the air vents, floating multimedia touchscreen and perfectly girthed steering wheel.
Everything about the cabin is laid out in a clear and sensible manner, but the soft-touch materials and contrast stitching throughout just elevate it from something you might expect from Honda.
And build quality in the ZR-V is excellent. Everything feels so solid and well put together, with nary a sign of squeak or rattle.
Is it the best-looking mainstream family SUV out there? It certainly comes close, but to my eye, Mazda’s CX-5 just edges it out due to a more consistent overall design.
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.
Measuring 4568mm long, 1840mm wide, 1620mm tall and with a 2655mm wheelbase, the ZR-V is one of the smallest mid-size SUVs in Australia.
But don’t let the figures fool you, as this pint-sized family hauler has a few tricks up its sleeve.
From the front row, there is ample room to get comfortable, while storage options extend to door pockets, a glove box, a generous wireless smartphone charging pad, two cupholders and a handy storage shelf under the shifter.
However, the front seats found in the VTi LX grade of ZR-V feel insufficiently bolstered and flat, at least to my back and bottom.
I found myself sinking and sliding around in the seat more than I would have liked in my time with the car, so this could be an area of concern for slimmer people like myself.
In the second row, there is sufficient space behind the driver’s seat, set for my 183cm frame, while map pockets and a fold-down armrest also come into play alongside the door’s bottle holder.
Worth noting, however, that while there's plenty of space to fit a forward-facing kids car seat and a front passenger, the door trims are a little chunky and leave little room for my toddler to slide in and out of said safety seat.
Open the boot and you will find enough room for 370 litres of volume, which can expand to 1302L with the rear seats stowed.
Although this isn’t close to class-leading (even the CX-5 manages a 438L/1340L rating), the flat floor and easy-to-remove cargo blind make it a breeze to throw a pram, shopping or any sort of gear into.
I think boot space is one of those stats that will always sound good on paper, but how you use that space in reality is a better indicator of practicality, and in this regard, I was never wanting for more space in my week with the car.
The Tiggo 4 Hybrid we’ve been driving for this review is the top-spec Ultimate, which wears a price-tag of $34,990, drive-away.
The surprising thing about this is how close it is to rivals. Yes, the Tiggo 4 Hybrid is still more affordable than most of its contemporaries, but it’s not by the same massive margin as its larger models like the Tiggo 7 PHEV ($39,990), which undercut the outgoing Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV by almost $20,000.
Instead, the Tiggo 4 Hybrid only just slips under a Toyota Yaris Cross GX hybrid ($34,790) although the margin increases considering Chery’s offer is drive-away. It also continues to look impressive compared to popular hybrid alternatives from more traditional automakers, like the exxy Honda HR-V (from $39,900) and the sightly larger Hyundai Kona (from $36,950).
The Tiggo 4’s value proposition is also complicated by how much competition there is in this small SUV space. A Haval Jolion hybrid, for example, can be had at $32,990, drive-away and is a slightly larger vehicle with a similar warranty offering, while MG’s ZS Hybrid+ can be had from $33,990, also drive-away, giving you plenty of things to think twice about.
Still, compared to those base prices for rivals, Chery is offering a top-spec and the Tiggo 4 Hybrid is pretty well equipped in this Ultimate form.
On the outside there are some expected things like 17-inch alloys and LED lighting, while on the inside the Tiggo 4 punches above its weight with things like dual 10.25-inch scregens for the multimedia and digital dash, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, synthetic leather seat trim with power adjust for the driver and heatin in the front two positions, dual-zone climate, a sunroof, ambient interior lighting, a wireless phone charger and a six-speaker stereo system.
There’s also a pretty good 360-degree view parking camera, walk away locking and auto-folding wing mirrors.
At this price, and in this segment, you generally have to spend a lot more to get this level of kit.
Honda’s 2023 ZR-V line-up can be had from as little as $40,200 drive-away for the base VTi X, while the top-spec e:HEV LX hybrid will set buyers back $54,900.
What we have is the highest grade available exclusive with petrol power, the VTi LX, priced at $48,500.
And for this sort of spend, you can expect a long list of equipment, similar to the fit-out you would usually see on luxury models wearing a German badge.
There’s a leather interior, heated and power-operated front seats, a heated steering wheel, heated rear seats, dual-zone climate control, a 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster, rear privacy glass, LED exterior lighting, a wireless smartphone charger and two-tone 18-inch alloy wheels.
Handling multimedia is a 9.0-inch touchscreen with Android Auto and wireless Apple CarPlay support, as well as in-built satellite navigation and digital radio.
Now, some might look at the ZR-V VTI LX’s near $50,000 price tag and think ‘Well, that’s just too expensive for a Honda’. But keep in mind that’s the drive-away price.
A similarly-priced Mazda CX-5 for example, the $44,300 before on-road costs Touring, misses out on features like rear heated seats and a powered tailgate, but also has a larger engine and all-wheel drive traction.
As for the Toyota RAV4, the equivalent variant would be the one-from-the-bottom $43,310 GXL that has a cloth interior, manually adjustable seats and an 8.0-inch multimedia screen.
All things considered, the ZR-V VTi-LX offers plenty of bang for buck for a family buyer, with enough of the modern conveniences that means you won’t be feeling the FOMO for many years to come.
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.
Powering the ZR-V VTi LX is a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine, the same one available across the model line barring the top-spec e:HEV hybrid.
The engine produces 131kW/240Nm, which isn’t all that much compared to larger engine rivals in the same segment.
Paired to the engine is a continuously variable transmission (CVT) that drives the front wheels.
And while a mid-size family SUV is never about outright power, and Honda’s powertrain options aren’t exactly plentiful at the moment, know that you aren’t getting the spiciest SUV with the ZR-V.
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.
Officially, the ZR-V VTi LX returns a combined cycle fuel economy figure of 7.4 litres per 100km, but in my week with the car I managed 9.8L/100km.
This figure is much closer to the city consumption number of 9.3L/100km and, given I only drove the car in Melbourne’s inner city, that explains why.
The ZR-V VTi LX needs just 91RON petrol at the bowser, helping to keep refill costs down.
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.
For a mid-sized family SUV, the ZR-V proves surprisingly fun and engaging behind the wheel.
A large part of this is due to the fact that the steering feel is just so good.
With enough weight and feedback coming from the tiller, it makes it an absolute delight to thread the ZR-V through traffic, around a roundabout or even a twisty road.
Some mainstream SUVs have opted for overly light steering feel, which ends up straying too close to unnatural. But the ZR-V, at least in this VTi LX form, nails it.
Backing up the steering is a comfortable ride, which is another pleasant surprise in the ZR-V.
The 18-inch wheels fitted are shod with thick 225/55 tyres, meaning there is plenty of sidewall to help soak up the bumps and ruts of Melbourne’s roads.
Don’t get me wrong, we're not talking premium levels of isolation here, but the plush ride is a welcome in a mainstream SUV.
Aiding this feeling of serenity is the 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine and CVT that is as smooth as they come.
I’ve never really warmed to CVTs in the past, but the ZR-V has a great one, ‘shifting’ smartly to avoid excessive drone, while the engine delivers enough kick to move things along briskly.
And, in a way turning a negative into a positive, the smaller dimensions of the ZR-V mean it doesn’t feel that big on the road, which makes car parks that much easier to navigate despite also offering enough practicality for a small family and some gear.
The Tiggo 4 has a lot of safety kit for this segment and for such an affordable price, so much so that combustion versions have a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating (although this hybrid variant didn’t exist when it was tested).
Active equipment includes all the key stuff like auto emergency braking, lane departure warning, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, adaptive cruise and auto high beams.
The 360-degree parking camera is a nice touch and there are seven airbags (dual front, side, curtain and centre).
Is the active stuff annoying? Yes, but you can most of it off and the car remembers your choice next time you start it, so you can turn the most egregious offenders, like lane departure warning, and speed limit assist off.
Even when they’re on they are okay, but I found the driver monitoring to be the most annoying of the usual crop, pinging at you constantly, sometimes for reasons beyond my comprehension.
The one you can’t seem to permanently turn off is driver attention alert, which is annoying because it is this car’s most egregious offender, chiming at me for even daring to peer down at the digital dash to see how fast I’m going.
Honda’s new ZR-V is yet to be crash tested by ANCAP or Euro NCAP and does not have an independent safety rating.
However, standard safety equipment includes forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition and lane keep assist as part of Honda’s 'Sensing Suite'.
The VTi LX adds rear cross-traffic alert and a surround-view monitor to the equipment list.
Rear cross-traffic alert should really be standard across the range and not just on the top-spec model. Its absence is a bit of a disappointment.
In my time with the car, I also found the automatic high beams to be overly aggressive. They were slow to turn off around other cars, leading to a more than a few flashes from oncoming traffic. I ended up just switching the auto high beams off.
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.
Like all new Hondas sold in Australia, the ZR-V comes with a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, matching the period offered by many mainstream brands like Ford, Hyundai, Mazda and Toyota.
And while this falls short of Kia’s seven-year warranty and Mitsubishi’s (conditional) 10-year period, the ZR-V’s servicing costs are among some of the lowest in the segment.
For the first five years or five services, each is just $199, with scheduled maintenance every 12 months or 10,000km.