Christopher Tan

It is enough to make your head spin.

How can a three-year-old company roll out a car which looks like it was styled by a branded Italian design house, with the finishing of a Lexus, the pricing of a Toyota, and an equipment list as long as the Great Wall of China?

Behold the Zeekr X, a compact crossover targeted at Gen Z buyers, and whose parent group is Chinese automotive giant Geely, which made its first car merely 26 years ago. Head still spinning.

The X is 4,432mm long,1,836mm wide and 1,566mm tall with a 2,750mm wheelbase.

That makes it slightly bigger than the Smart #1 and the Volvo EX30, with which it shares a Geely group platform. That also makes it quite effortless to drive in a built-up city like Singapore.

Like its two Geely cousins, the X has a surprisingly spacious cabin despite its compactness. But unlike the two, its second row strangely does not have a completely flat floor.

At 362 litres, its boot is small, but you can flip down the backs of the rear seats when you want to transport bulkier items.

The X is pleasing to the eye, with a modern European design emphasising dynamic and edgy lines. It is a refreshing take on the urban crossover underscored by simplicity and cleverness – which, in my books, are the hallmarks of sophistication.

This theme continues inside, where fine materials and thoughtful touches set the X apart from all other Chinese cars that came before it. Its phone-charging cradle is a snug slot on the centre armrest, which prevents your device from sliding around, and makes retrieval easy.

The X is fitted with features too long to list, but the unique ones include ambient lights which flash in sync with music, a fridge-cum-food warmer compartment (minus 6 to 50 deg C) under the centre armrest, a crisp Yamaha hi-fi system and quick-access buttons behind the steering spokes.

Here, you can call up favourite functions instantly, including a recorded message thanking pedestrians for giving way.

The cabin is not without flaws, though. In the test car, the dashboard’s upper deck meets the door panels with uneven gaps on either side.

The powered window toggles are not intuitive – you never quite know which side is for up and which is for down. Ditto the centre compartment lid, where recesses for your fingers are barely accessible.

Like most electric cars, the X has a large tablet-style infotainment touchscreen. This comes with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but reconnection is not automatic.

Zeekr’s voice command function is supposed to be quite advanced, but it does not seem to recognise navigation addresses, and its adjustment of hi-fi volume needs fine-tuning.

Like a few other cars, its driver attention monitor is overly sensitive. It flashes a warning with the word “Distractive”, which is jarring to a non-Gen Z person like me.

The system, however, is clever enough to have different warnings for when the driver is distracted and when he is tired. A yawn, for instance, will trigger the latter.

While Chinese carmakers are making lightning-fast progress, they are going through the same learning curve as the Europeans and Japanese.

In the 1980s and 1990s, these incumbents were enamoured of audio warnings, but they eventually learnt that drivers found them useless or, worse, irritating.

Zeekr has other fundamentals nailed down, however. The test car is a single-motor rear-wheel drive, with a more modest but still amply adequate powertrain than the variant test driven in China in June.

The X has a refined ride quality, with its front MacPherson strut and multi-link rear suspension able to cushion the car from most road ruts nearly as well as air springs. This is a feat, especially for hefty electric vehicles.

The X drives well, with an uncommon blend of sportiness, comfort and fun to keep the driver entertained, but not unduly excited. Its compactness plays to its advantage, although a raised rear door panel impedes visibility slightly whenever you glance left.

The Volvo EX30 has the same raised panel, but does not seem to incur this deficit.

The Zeekr X averages 17.8kWh/100km, which is close to the claimed figure and the EX30’s tested figure. Based on its battery size, the X has a real-world range of 370km if driven exclusively in Singapore. Unlike most, its trip computer tells you how much power is consumed when the car is not moving too.

Overall, the X is a creditable competitor in the premium compact crossover segment. Its closest rival is the EX30, and picking one over the other may be down to small differences such as styling, equipment and driving behaviour.

ZEEKR X (RWD).....................................................
MOTOR Rear-mounted permanent magnet synchronous with 66kWh battery
POWER 200kW
TORQUE 343Nm
0-100KMH 5.6 seconds
TOP SPEED 185kmh
POWER CONSUMPTION 17.3kWh/100km
AGENT Premium Automobiles
RATING ★★★✩✩

christan@sph.com.sg • Follow Christopher Tan on Instagram @chris.motoring

Source: [The Straits Times] © SPH Media Limited.