JAECOO E5 review: a £27,505 electric SUV

The JAECOO E5 is a compact electric SUV that starts at £27,505 new, and covers about 200 miles in the real world. You get a lot of car for your money, including a 480-litre boot, and at a price that sits well below most electric family cars. On the flip side you can expect slightly slower acceleration, and slower rapid charging than some rival models. 

We've been living with the JAECOO E5 to find out what it's made of. Here’s our verdict.

• The JAECOO E5 starts at £27,505 new and goes up to around £30,505 for the Luxury trim. 
• Real-world range is around 200 miles from a 61 kWh battery, which covers a week of normal family driving for most people.
• The boot holds 480 litres, increasing to 1,180 litres with the back seats down, and there's a 'frunk' (aka a 'front trunk') under the bonnet for your charging cables.
• A 10-80% charge costs around £2.99 at home, on Octopus Energy’s Intelligent Octopus Go - EV Saver tariff.
• Using an ultra rapid public charger, a 10 to 80% charge on the JAECOO E5 will cost around £35.35, with the 10% discount Octopus EV personal leasing drivers get through Electroverse.
• The trade-offs are a touchscreen that can lag at times, and rapid charging that's slightly slower than similar models. But you get a lot of car for your money. 

The JAECOO E5 is a five-seat electric SUV, and has been available in the UK since 2025. It’s quickly become one of the UK’s best selling EVs, despite it being from a fairly unknown brand. It's the battery version of the petrol JAECOO 5. JAECOO is owned by Chinese manufacturer Chery, which also owns OMODA, so the two E5s share much of their engineering. 

You can expect rugged looks and a big cabin, at a price that usually buys you something considerably smaller. It's built for people who like the idea of wild adventure, even if most of those adventures are a run to the supermarket.

The JAECOO E5 comes in two trims, Pure and Luxury. Both use the same 61kWh battery and motor, so range, charging and performance are the same whichever you pick. The difference is the kit, and the Luxury costs £3,000 more.

The Pure is the entry-level E5, from £27,505, and it's hardly bare. You get alloy wheels, keyless entry, front and rear parking sensors and adaptive cruise control, plus a 13.2-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a six-speaker sound system. The front seats are cloth and adjusted by hand, and the headlights are halogen.

The Luxury, from £30,505, adds the comfort and convenience extras. That means LED headlights, a powered tailgate, a panoramic sunroof that opens, heated and ventilated front seats with six-way electric adjustment, a wireless phone charger and an eight-speaker Sony sound system.

Which should you pick? If the E5 will mostly do short local trips, the Pure covers what you need. For £3,000 more, the Luxury adds the features you'll notice every day, which is why reviewers at What Car? and Top Gear both point buyers towards it.

The RRP starts at £27,505 for the entry-level JAECOO E5 Pure and reaches about £30,505 for the Luxury version. Both trims share a battery and a motor, so the extra money buys you upgrades in the driving experience, not miles.

The Pure version covers the basics, with cloth seats you adjust by hand. The Luxury version also includes heated and ventilated synthetic leather seats, a heated steering wheel, a Sony sound system and a full-length glass roof.

The seats are ventilated, and as Asel, our resident EV reviewer, put it in our video review on a 30-degree day in the car, if you're wearing shorts on a hot day, your legs won't stick to the seats. 

The roof is another selling point. It's a panoramic glass roof which you can actually open, not by voice, but by pressing a button. Remember buttons?

Cars registered on or after 1 April 2025 with a list price above £50,000 pay the expensive car supplement for five years. The E5 sits well under that threshold, so you skip it, and pay just £10 for road tax the first year then the £200 standard rate.

You can expect 200 miles from a 61kWh battery from the JAECOO E5. You'll see a bigger number quoted elsewhere, the official WLTP (aka the lab tested version) figure is 248 miles. But we don’t think that’s useful to you, because range can vary based on your driving behaviour, the terrain and the weather. Or, as Asel put it, you'll see 248 miles, only if the weather is absolutely perfect and you're doing 52mph on a flat Dutch road. 200 miles is the number worth planning around.

Do you need more than 200 miles of range? For most families, no. Two hundred miles easily covers the school run, the commute and the weekly shop several times over.

What about charging? On a 7kW home charger the E5 adds about 24 miles of range an hour, so a normal overnight charge fills it comfortably. On an ultra rapid charger, it’s about 240 miles of range an hour, taking you just 35 minutes to charge from 10-80%.

Some similar models at this price will charge faster. It’s worth weighing up that slight downside if you drive long distances often. 

A full charge takes the Jaecoo E5 about 200 miles, but most drivers usually keep their battery between 10 and 80% so that’s what we’ve based these prices on. 

What that costs comes down to where you plug in. At home on a smart EV charging tariff it's a couple of pounds. On a motorway ultra-rapid charger, it's more like a round of drinks. Here’s what it costs to charge the JAECOO E5. 

Charging prices from octopusev.com, accurate as of October 2026. Energy prices change, so check the current price before you plan around them.

The cheapest option above assumes you have a 7kW charger at home, and your energy tariff offers a cheaper rate. Intelligent Octopus Go - EV Saver is Octopus Energy's home charging tariff, and the discounted rate is exclusive to Octopus EV drivers, which is what brings a full charge down to about £2.99. But you’re not far off that, even if you don’t get the discount.

Public charging costs more than home charging, as you’d expect because you’re paying for the convenience of charging while you’re on the go. As Asel points out, that pattern isn't unique to electric cars. Filling up with petrol on the motorway costs you more than filling up locally, too.

Tax also comes into it. Home electricity carries less VAT (0% as of 1st October 2026) while public charging carries the standard 20% VAT rate. Check out our guide to electric car charging costs for a full breakdown of home vs public charging costs. Check out our guide to charging costs for a full breakdown of home vs public charging costs.

Very. The boot holds 480 litres, or 1,180 litres with the rear seats folded, and the floor moves. Set it high for a flat load bay, or drop it down for more height and keep the parcel shelf over your things.

One small thing to know before you stand in a car park falling out with the key. The boot button has a delay in it, and the temptation is to keep tapping. Asel's advice: don't worry, just hold it, and the boot opens electronically.

Under the bonnet there's a frunk (aka ‘front trunk’), a great home for your charging cable so it’s not rolling around the boot. JAECOO claims there are 35 storage cubbies inside. We didn't count them, but the ones that matter are a huge centre armrest, two cup holders, two phone spots (one charges wirelessly) and a cubby for roadtrip snacks.

Two features stood out when we filmed the car: 

• Camping mode turns it into somewhere to sleep, with the back seats down, the boot floor level and vehicle-to-load power for a kettle or a toaster.
• Pet mode - which is easier to picture the way Asel talks about it. You've got your four-legged friend out back and you've got to pop into the post office for a couple of minutes. The car holds the climate control at a set temperature and puts a message on the screen, so anyone walking past knows your dog is comfortable rather than abandoned. No mother-in-law mode yet, sadly.

The boxy shape pays off in headroom. The roof is flat and the windows are big, so the cabin feels larger than the car's footprint suggests.

Parking is made a lot easier by a camera system JAECOO calls 540-degree, which sounds like nonsense, until you use it. You get the usual 360-degree view around the car, plus a transparent mode that stitches footage from the front and rear cameras into a picture of what's underneath it. Handy on a tight kerb, even handier if your kids have left their toys strewn across the driveway.

Easy, quiet and soft, rather than sharp. It'll do 0 to 62mph in 7.7 seconds on the way to a 109mph top speed, which is plenty for a family car. The steering is light, the pedals are gentle, and the thick tyres round off potholes and kerbs nicely.

It isn't a sports car and doesn't pretend to be. On faster roads the ride turns floaty, and the steering tells you little about what the front wheels are doing. Around town, where this car will spend most of its life, none of that matters much.

The safety features are all there, including lane keeping and adaptive cruise control that holds a set gap to the car in front. Every new car has to fit speed limit chimes, and this one's are softer than most, so they don't nag. It doesn’t yet have an official NCAP safety rating, but that’s just because it hasn’t been tested yet.

In our opinion there are three, but none is a deal breaker at this price. 

1. The boxy body isn't the most aerodynamic, so motorway driving eats into range more than it would in a sleeker car. 
2. The touchscreen handles most functions and it can feel laggy. 
3. And rapid charging tops out slower than most rivals, which you’ll only notice on long trips rather than day to day.

For the price, considering its real-world range, it's hard to beat. 

Prices and real-world range from the EV Database, in September 2026.

The Renault 4 undercuts it and has more character, but it's smaller inside. The Omoda E5 is the corporate cousin, sleeker but also tighter for space. The Kia EV3 goes a lot further between charges, and costs considerably more. If space per pound is what you're after, the JAECOO makes a strong case.

Asel's verdict after living with it puts it plainly. The traditional mainstream market should absolutely be looking over their shoulder at the sheer amount of car JAECOO's giving you for the money. This isn't a track day weapon. It's a comfortable, hugely practical, head-turning family car that just happens to be electric.

If the E5 suits you, leasing is one way into this car, without having to find a big deposit or worrying about what the car's worth in three years. We lease the JAECOO E5 on personal contract hire, and it's been one of the cars our drivers pick most often this year.

A lease with Octopus EV includes the car with servicing, road tax, MOT included, so it's one monthly payment rather than five bills at different times. You can add a home charger, and many of our cars come with a free or discounted one depending on the model. Check out the current EV leasing offers here.

On a 7kW home charger the E5 will charge from 10-80% in around 5 hours 46 minutes. So an overnight charge refills it no problem. On an ultra rapid public charger, 10 to 80% top-up takes as little as 35 minutes. 

About £2.99 for a 10 to 80% charge at home on Intelligent Octopus Go - EV Saver, Octopus Energy's tariff whose discounted rate is exclusive to Octopus EV drivers. A 10 to 80% top-up on a motorway ultra-rapid is about £35.35, with the 10% Electroverse discount baked in if you lease through Octopus EV. 

The E5 only went on sale in the UK in 2025, so there isn't enough owner data yet to judge it fairly. What you do get is a long manufacturer warranty, covering seven years or 100,000 miles, with eight years of cover on the battery. 

They're closely related. Both are made by Chery and share much of their engineering, but they're styled and packaged differently. The Omoda E5 is sleeker and more angular, which costs it some interior space. The JAECOO E5 is boxier, roomier inside and cheaper to buy.

Yes. The E5 runs on a battery and an electric motor only, with zero tailpipe emissions, and there's no hybrid option. The petrol version of the same car is sold separately as the JAECOO 5, so check the badge and the spec when you're comparing prices.

It depends on what you need. The Renault 4 costs less and has more personality. The JAECOO E5 is the bigger car inside, with a 480-litre boot and more headroom, and includes more kit as standard. If space matters most, the JAECOO E5 wins. If charm and price matter most, the Renault does.