The Best of Both Worlds
Chery's PHEV is the compromise we want
The late British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain once said, “In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.” If you think about it, he has a very good point. War is destructive and achieves no lasting social progress – if anything, it tears down the concepts of civil society and replaces them with violence
On a selfish note, the war in Ukraine has had a devastating effect on gas prices worldwide. Ever since the start of Russia’s invasion, prices have skyrocketed to prices we’ve never seen before. With 100 pesos per liter looming on the horizon, making trips more cost effective is imperative for Filipinos, to stretch that peso as far as it can go.
Chery Auto Philippines wants to help the Filipinos do just that with their Tiggo8 Pro Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, one of their newest launches in the Philippines.
Seeing it at the Manila International Auto Show over the weekend was somewhat unremarkable. Yes, it has all the nice styling features, and the modern LED headlights with Daytime Running Lights, but in this day and age, what premium SUV doesn’t? The Chery Tiggo8 Pro PHEV looked exactly the same as its non-hybrid kin, which in turn are undiscernible from any other SUV, at least to the uninitiated in the automotive industry.
It's in the interior that the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV really start to make that difference known. Unlike its competitors in the segment, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV comes with soft touch materials on most surfaces inside, the only hard plastics you feel being where your feet go. All the seats, including the folding third row, are covered in premium leather, as are the steering wheel, center console, arm rests, and other surfaces your bare skin may touch. You notice immediately as you get in that it is quite the pleasant place to be. The seats are very soft despite being quite thin, and the steering wheel is squishy and nice to hold. With tilt and telescopic steering adjustment, coupled with the 6-way power adjust seats, it’s much easier to find your ideal driving position. It’s likely that anyone who drives the car long distance will still feel fresh when they arrive.
Things really start to pick up when we talk about the features of the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV. The only trim level for the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV comes with Active Brake Assist, Hill Descent Control, Tire Pressure Monitoring, as well as the usuals – ABS, EBD, Traction Control, Cruise control, and all the other amenities expected on a premium luxury SUV. Chery decided to add a little extra though, and gave the Tiggo8 Pro not only a reversing camera, but a forward facing camera as well, and a 360 degree camera that shows the surroundings of the exterior, albeit with slight distortion. Getting to the In Car Entertainment of the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV, we once again get all the typical trimmings of modern luxury SUVs – Bluetooth, hands free, and dual zone climate control, and the 6 airbags. Where the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV starts to go beyond is the built in navigation, as well as the Android Auto and Apple Carplay, as well as wireless mobile phone charging. All things that make the daily commute a little easier on the soul.
Where the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV really shines though is its powertrain. While others in its segment use a turbo diesel engine, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV uses a 1.5L turbocharged gasoline engine, making a fairly paltry 155 horsepower and 230 Newton meters of torque. But wait! There’s more! The Tiggo8 Pro PHEV has not one, but three motors! Yes, the PHEV part of the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV’s name stands for Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicle. Keyword: Hybrid. Helping the 1.5L turbo-3 along are two electric motors with 54 horsepower and 33 horsepower, respectively, coupled with a 19.5 kWh battery. And because it’s a parallel hybrid vehicle, where the gasoline engine and the electric motors work in tandem to power the vehicle, the Chery Tiggo8 Pro PHEV suddenly has 242-hp on tap, ready to go as soon as you stab the throttle. But as a Hybrid vehicle, you have the option to choose what kind of drive mode you will use – be it full electric, hybrid electric, or automatic, where you let the car decide the best course of action.
If you decide to use Full electric, the 19.5 kWh battery gives the car a claimed 95 kilometers of pure EV range, with no emissions. Conservatively speaking, it will be more like 70 kilometers with a full host of passengers and cargo, but even so, that’s more than any other Hybrid Electric vehicle in the Philippines to date. If you go for the automatic setting, the car will decide what is the best way to use the gasoline engine and electric motor to achieve a balance between fuel and battery consumption. Whatever the consumption may be for the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV, it will be more economical than a typical gasoline powered MPV, for sure.
We all know that Zero Emissions are the future, be it Battery electric, Hydrogen electric, or even Hydrogen combustion. And while that future is exciting, snapping ourselves back to the current reality means accepting that fossil fuels will be around for the foreseeable future. Having a hybrid vehicle gives us the Goldilocks combination between a gasoline vehicle and an Electric vehicle. You have the benefit of an electric vehicle but none of the range anxiety, and you have the benefits of a gas-powered vehicle but with a minimized fuel consumption.
With a price tag of 2.4 million Philippine Pesos, the Chery Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is still more than what most Filipinos can afford, but simultaneously, that’s in the ballpark of other, conventionally powered SUVs available in the Philippines. But because this is a hybrid and the rest are powered by diesel engines, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is cleaner and more economical than the others. Is it worth it? It really depends on what you’re buying it for. If you’re looking for a truck that doubles as a weekend adventurer, then no, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is not for you. But if you need a city vehicle for your daily commute that can be used to go out of town with the wife, kids, and dog, then take the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV out for a spin.
Yes, it’s Chinese, and the stigma of Chinese brands is hard to get around, especially with a brand like Chery, which tried and failed to penetrate our market nearly a decade ago. In 2022, though, Chery’s newest offerings are lightyears away from where the brand was in 2010.
For some, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is a tough horse to back. It’s new technology from a company that doesn’t have enough years under its belt to really know the Philippine market. On top of that, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is plagued by the same stigma against Chinese made cars that killed the company’s first foray on our shores. But for others, the Tiggo8 Pro PHEV is worth taking a gamble, because if we remove the stigma against Chinese cars, what we have left is a car that’s well equipped, stylish, economical, and spacious. When you can’t ask for anything more, you don’t really have a reason to say no, thank you. So instead, we say “Yes, please, but does it come in Black?”
