Mercedes-Benz X350 vs Zeekr X

What's the difference?

The V6 X-Class is nice enough to drive on-road and it’s effective enough off-road, but it’s let down by its less-than-impressive interior and those elements combined certainly do not justify such a high price-tag.

Sure, its safety gear is top-notch but the X-Class, even in this V6 guise, feels like a lacklustre attempt at ute greatness, rather than a real effort. 

Right now, if you’re in the market for a super-comfortable and capable V6 ute with real class and German precision, check out a top-spec V6 Amarok – and save about $25,000 while you’re at it.

It's a good thing in a small package, this Zeekr X, and there are a lot of things I like about it. In fact, the only sticking point for me is the price. But that's all about perspective. If you see this as a newcomer Chinese brand, then yes, there are a lot of more affordable options out there. But if you see it as a premium player, it's really a more affordable version of a Volvo.

Note: The author, Andrew Chesterton, is a co-owner of Smart As Media, a content agency and media distribution service with a number of automotive brands among its clients. When producing content for CarsGuide, he does so in accordance with the CarsGuide Editorial Guidelines and Code of Ethics, and the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

From the outside, the X-Class looks pretty impressive – it’s chunky and blocky and has a real tough-truck presence.

As mentioned, a fair few of the cool exterior touches are actually paid-for options, and our tester was loaded with these extras and, as a result, looked like a work-or-play ready luxury workhorse.

So, it looks pretty good but, as always, looks can be deceiving and the interior is a very different story.

The visual changes aren’t massive. This AWD version welcomes a couple of new exterior colours, including the 'Matt Khaki Green' of our test car. It also gets the two-tone black roof and there are new 20-inch alloy designs.

Elsewhere, it's the futuristic-style of design we’re used to which differentiates the X from its Volvo EX30 twin under the skin.

Inside, this is a seriously well-equipped and polished-feeling small SUV, and — unlike some of the newcomer brands to Australia — it all feels very high quality and well put together. And that includes the material choices.

I don’t even hate the fact that most of the functions are controlled via this screen, thanks to the little shortcuts glued to the home screen. I do, however, hate the fact that there’s no easy way to change the wing mirrors or shortcuts for toning down some of the safety stuff.

That aside, though, it’s a nice and high-quality feeling space.

I’m not a snob about interiors but if I spent almost $90 grand on a ute I’d expect it to have a very high level of fit and finish inside, plenty of storage options and an overall premium feeling inside.

That’s sorely lacking in here.

From the many hard-plastic surfaces, fake leather, brushed-aluminium sections and sort of half-hearted attempts at three-pointed star styling – such as the vents – no part of the interior looks or feels anything like the premium quality you’d expect to find in a Mercedes-Benz.

As for equipment inside, you get the 7.0-inch floating touchscreen and a few other bits and pieces but there are some glaring omissions: you don’t get a reach-adjustable steering wheel, heated seats, or real leather (our tester has the optional black leather seats fitted at a cost of $1750), you don’t get much in the way of storage anywhere, and you don’t get Apple CarPlay or Android Auto – you don’t even get a driver-side grab handle. All of those sort of mod cons, you get in a ute that costs much less than this X-Class. 

Room and comfort inside is adequate but a long way from unreal for something so pricey.

Driving position is nice, with plenty of vision all-round, but everyone's seats could do with a bit more cushioning and length in the base.

In the grand tradition of all utes, the rear seat is really the realm of young children and, at a stretch, smaller adults, especially for longer trips in the saddle. 

Storage is minimal in the back seat – you don’t even get a drop-down arm-rest with cup-holder.

You know you're in a small vehicle when you can't fit two large (not those crazy American-style jumbo cups, just normal coffee-shop takeaway) coffees in the cupholders, but so it is with the Zeekr X.

The small SUV's 4432mm length, 1836mm in width and 1566mm height doesn't leave much room to spread out up front. There's ample room for driver and passenger, of course, but we are talking about a small vehicle here.

Clever storage helps to mitigate that, though, especially the super-deep storage space in the centre console and the very clever fridge that separates the driver and passenger seats.

Weirdly, though, the space doesn’t feel overly tight in the back seat. We had a massive baby seat in there, and that fit without issue. And full size humans can genuinely get pretty comfortable. I'm 175cm, and I had enough knee and headroom.

In the boot, there’s 404 litres of volume with the rear seats upright and 1247 litres with them folded flat. And it’s worth pointing out this isn’t intended to be a family car, but there’s certainly enough space for the shopping... and a pram.

This is a small SUV with a LOT of stuff. There are two trims in the Zeekr X range – the entry-level rear-drive model is $48,900, drive-away, while the all-wheel drive version we've tested is $57,900 on the road.

The obvious comparison is to the Volvo EX30, which shares its platform with the Zeekr X through both brands' Chinese parent company Geely.

As of right now, the cheapest single-motor Volvo is $56,051, drive-away in NSW, or $49,990 plus on-roads, making the Zeekr version much, much cheaper.

Anyway, outside there are 19- or 20-inch alloys, though our test car is fitted with the optional 20-inch black alloys, paired with a black-with-red-highlights interior treatment, which adds $2000 to the price.

Ours is also fitted with the electric front doors which open or close at the push of a button, and back doors that unlatch, but don’t fully open, the same way, which adds another $2000.

Both trims also get heated and cooled front seats, and heating in the rear window seats, but this AWD version also adds a massage function for front seat riders. 

There’s also wireless charging, a 13-speaker Yamaha sound system and — very cool, literally — is the little drinks fridge between the front seats in the AWD variant.

Tech is handled by a 14.6-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and there’s a head-up display for the driver.

The V6 350d Power V6 has a Benz-built 3.0-litre diesel engine (190kW at 3400rpm and 550Nm at 1400rpm-3200rpm), matched to a Benz-built seven-speed auto. It’s a mostly smooth combination and any perceived throttle or turbo lag can be swiftly overcome through switching to one of the more sporty of the five driving modes – one of which is actually called Sport – and making judicious use of the steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters. The other driving modes are Comfort, Eco, Manual and Off Road and all are designed to adjust throttle input, gear changes and shift times to suit the terrain.

This X-Class has Benz’s 4Matic full-time 4WD system with 4MAT (40:60 torque split for daily driving), 4H (the X-Class’s high range, with 30:70 torque split for looser surfaces) and 4L (aka low range with a 50:50 torque split to suit low-speed 4WDing). The driver uses a simple dial – unfortunately tucked away low down, almost hidden, on the centre console – to switch between these modes.

The big news here is a more powerful rear motor – meaning you get more grunt whether you opt for the rear-wheel drive or this all-wheel drive.

In rear-drive form, that boosts your outputs from 200kW to 250kW, dropping the sprint to 100km/h to 5.6 seconds. In AWD guise, your new outputs are 365kW (up from 315kW) and 573Nm, and your sprint to 100km/h falls to 3.7 seconds.

Fuel consumption is listed as 8.8L/100km (combined). 

We recorded 10.9L/100km on test and that included plenty of low-speed 4WDing. 

The V6 X-Class has a 80-litre fuel tank. 

This is where it starts to get weird. The rear-drive Zeekr X is fitted with a 61kWh LFP battery, which can accept up to 230kW DC fast charging, taking you from 10 to 80 per cent charged in just 18 minutes. Total claimed range is 405km.

The flagship AWD, though, charges at a slower rate. It gets a 66kWh NMN battery and can only be charged at 150kW, meaning the same charge takes 30 minutes. Zeekr is promising a 415km driving range between charges.

Well, this is where the news gets a little bit better.

The V6 is a much better fit for the X-Class than the four-cylinder and it works well with the seven-speed auto, punching the more-than-2190kg ute along – although there is, at times, a substantial delay between foot down and go-time but, as mentioned earlier, that can be overcome by switching to Sport and using the paddle shifters.

It does sit nicely on the road, and ride and handling are generally okay with the X-Class only infrequently revealing some of the skips and jitters you’d expect of an unladen ute.

The coil-spring suspension tends to yield a spongy, comfortable ride rather than the too-firm ride of a ute, especially those of the leaf-spring variety, with nothing onboard.

Steering is pretty sharp and, despite its bulk, the X-Class is reasonably easy to manoeuvre for its size on- and off-road. It has a 12.8m turning circle.

Short answer? Pretty good, with some caveats.

I'm partial to a firmer ride. I find some Chinese car companies can feel like they get their suspension bits from Captain Snooze, such is the soft, pillowy ride served up. And to be honest, it makes me a little seasick at times.

The Zeekr is not like that. It has firmness dialled into the ride equation and can feel harsh at times, but also improves the drive experience, delivering connection and engagement at the cost of some sharpness on the wrong road. 

It's also faster than the model it replaces, but it's also one of those cars in which the real-life feeling doesn't quite match the on-paper promise.

This thing serves up supercar speed, but it doesn't feel like it from behind the wheel. Instead, the acceleration - especially from a rolling start - feels potent, but not biblical.

From a standing start it pauses for a moment, almost like an internal-combustion vehicle might, before delivering a quick (but not stratospheric) flow of power. None of that is a bad thing, by the way. Who wants their small SUV to accelerate like a supercar?

It's otherwise an entirely pleasant drive. The cabin is serene and quiet and it's a small car that doesn't feel like one. There's nothing light or tinny about the drive experience, instead there's a heft and quality.

The Zeekr X wears a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating, earned in 2024, which means the long list of required active safety stuff is present and accounted for, all wrapped up in what Zeekr calls its 'Intelligent Driving Assist System'.

There are five cameras, five radars and 12 sensors, which is a crazy number for a car this small.

And this is also not a car in which I was desperately trying to figure out how to deactivate any of the active safety systems – save the overzealous over-speed warning – which is a win these days, too. 

There are also seven airbags, including a centre front airbag.

The Zeekr X is fitted with ISOFIX anchors on the rear outboard seats and top tether anchorages for all rear seating positions.

A three-year/200,00km warranty applies to this ute. Service intervals are up to one year/20,000km.

Zeekr's coverage is an underwhelming five-year, unlimited-kilometres, while the drive battery is covered for eight-years or 160,000km. There’s five years' of roadside assistance thrown in, too.

Service intervals are 20,000km or 12 months, with five years' of ownership setting you back a hefty $3072; an average of $614 per workshop visit.

There are currently 16 Zeekr dealers in Australia - two of which are 'pop-up' sites rather than full retail centres.

Multiple locations in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with the ACT, Adelaide and Perth also covered. Others include Geelong and the Sunshine Coast but so far you're out of luck in Tassie or the NT.