The rear-drive Geely EX5 breaks the cover

The Chinese EV market is relentless, chaotic, and can be very tricky to keep track of. A brand debuts on a Monday with world-changing promises, drops two compact crossovers on Wednesday, and rolls out an entirely new sub-brand by Friday morning. But there are exceptions to this rule, and sometimes a manufacturer realizes that approach gets you nowhere really, and decides to transform an ordinary runabout into a decent piece of hardware.

Geely - the parent company behind Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, and Zeekr - knows how to build a chassis that can dance. Yet, the front-wheel-drive EX5 - sold across China as the Galaxy E5 - felt excessively modest. It was designed as a well-behaved, budget-friendly commuter that blends in rather than stands out. It seems Geely decided that being polite no longer sells, especially after watching domestic deliveries slide to 40,776 units from January to August of this year - that's a sharp 46% tumble year-over-year. The fix? A top-to-bottom refresh that throws out the mild recipe in favor of rear-wheel drive, high-voltage architecture, and enough horsepower to make the whole family smile.

Of course, first impressions matter, and the new EX5 demonstrates it has graduated to a far more serious class of motoring. The shape is familiar, but the subtle revisions tell the real story. Gone are the finicky, flush electric pop-out door handles that freeze up in winter - replaced by honest, conventional grab handles that simply work. The front and rear bumpers are more aggressive, with added matte-black and chrome trim, and extra proximity sensors sit nestled cleanly in the front fenders. The crown, however, sits right on the roof: an unmissable LiDAR pod right above the windscreen, suggesting that this family crossover has some serious autonomous hardware.

The proportions hit a sweet spot for practical daily driving. The EX5 measures 182.5 inches in overall length, spreads out to 75.6 inches in width, and stands 65.7 inches tall, with a decent wheelbase of 108.3 inches. To put those numbers in context against the crossover benchmarks, it is just 0.51 inches shorter than a Skoda Enyaq, while its wider track gives it a more planted stance than a standard Volkswagen ID.4. It is almost identical in footprint to the Tesla Model Y, but Geely managed to carve out more space up front.

Pop the electronically operated bonnet - a surprising touch on mass-market crossovers - and you will find an enormous front luggage compartment. With a 5.7 ft³ capacity and a payload rating of 110 lb, this is a genuine, deep storage well capable of swallowing two carry-on suitcases or a full weekend's worth of muddy walking gear. Rolling on 19-inch alloys with the high-speed charging port on the rear driver-side quarter panel, the exterior manages to look pleasantly athletic.

Geely's cabin team deserves a round of applause for dodging the industry's touchscreen totalitarianism. Yes, you get the floating central screen and a slim digital instrument cluster ahead of the driver, with a sharp head-up display. But look down at the center console, and sanity has been saved. Instead of burying every basic climate control, defroster, and drive setting three layers deep into a laggy menu, Geely uses clicky physical toggle switches together with an intuitive rotary knob-shifter.

The steering wheel is a flat-bottomed, D-shaped rim that should sit nicely in the hands, and a column-mounted gear selector frees up valuable console room for high-power wireless smartphone charging. The proprietary Flyme Sound acoustic setup is present, and passengers in the back get an expansive rear center armrest pulled down between them. It is an interior that balances digital with the muscle-memory ergonomics we still enjoy.

But the headline story is what Geely did in the performance department. The current EX5 has a front-mounted motor with a modest 215 hp (160 kW) output. The new version bins that entirely, stepping up to a dedicated 800V high-voltage architecture with all the power going directly to where it belongs: the rear axle. A single permanent-magnet motor now dishes out 329 hp (245 kW) - a 114 hp leap over its predecessor. Having that much shove transforms a boring family hauler into a playful, tail-happy crossover.

Buyers will have a choice of two lithium-iron-phosphate battery packs that exploit the rapid charging speeds of that 800V platform. The entry-level specification uses a 61.5 kWh battery with a rated 342 miles of range on the Chinese CLTC testing cycle (closer to {{450}} km under the European WLTP benchmark). Go for the flagship 70 kWh pack, and the range climbs to 395 miles CLTC (about 323 miles on the WLTP cycle). Compared to the older car's somewhat anemic 267 miles of WLTP endurance, the new hardware gives road trippers genuine breathing room between stops.

All that high performance needs brains to match, and Geely gave the EX5 its proprietary G-ASD G-Pilot H5 suite. Thanks to that roof-mounted LiDAR, the suite of cameras and fender sensors, the new model gets Navigate On Autopilot (NOA) on highways and in urban scenarios. In a Chinese market where driver-assistance algorithms are developing at breakneck speeds, having hardware-level urban pilot capability is the bare minimum if you want to lure buyers away from rival showrooms.

Geely will officially launch the revised Galaxy E5 across China on September 23, but the car's global aspirations are no secret. As Western markets suffer from inflated prices and sluggish software updates, this crossover is tipped to land in European showrooms in the very near future. If Geely can bring this exact package at an attractive price, the traditional automaker will have a proper headache to deal with.

Via