Keeping up with new car brands is like keeping up with fashion, ever-changing tax laws or software; as soon as you think you’re on top of the situation, it’s already changed.
Dozens of automotive firms have either launched or significantly expanded in the past five or six years. Names gliding along the streets today that you hadn’t heard of beyond that timeframe include Omada, Jaecoo, BYD, Zeekr, Voyah, Onvo, Firefly and so on. Mostly EVs.
Why? An EV is essentially software on wheels, so automotive conglomerates have been able to develop entirely new marques from scratch, at speed, without necessarily needing years of expertise and experience in the business.
Here’s another new name for you: Aion. Officially trading as GAC Aion, it’s the vehicle arm of the Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC Group) and is, of course, like most new brands today, Chinese owned.
You probably haven’t seen one yet but, just like those now ubiquitous Jaecoos and BYDs, you soon will. The name hasn’t come entirely out of the blue; GAC is actuallyChina’s fifth-largest automaker and has operated successful, decades-long joint manufacturing ventures with Toyota and Honda.
Greek salad
The name ‘Aion’ was introduced in 2018, drawing its name from the ancient Greek word ‘aion’, conjuring a salad of words such as ‘age’, ‘epoch’ or ‘lifetime,’ but apparently symbolising a new era of electric mobility. Sales started in China, around 2020 and it has now officially launched in the UK, kicking off with the Aion V SUV and the Aion UT compact hatchback.
We’ve been driving the 4.6-metre-long V SUV and - generally - like what we see. It’s a fairly striking, slightly cuboid-looking block of a car, reminding me of Kryten’s head in Red Dwarf, but not at all bad looking, including some nice design touches: cut-out shapes in the bottoms of the squared-off doors, a big, flat, bluff bonnet, prominent, useful-looking roof rails giving it a vaguely off-road vibe, flush door handles, prominent wheelarches, a tall stance, and so on. It looks handy.
There are even little ‘chequered flag’-style logos on the side to break up the ‘block’ look, an attractively-shaped rear end and a general ‘built for action’ stance. You wouldn’t confuse it with a more conventional petrol or diesel car, which is exactly what the designers intended.
What will appeal to buyers is that - for £36,450, or with PCP offers from £379 per month - you get a big, full five-seater with a ton of high-end kit that, once, you’d only have got on a more costly premium model.
It’s positively humming with tech, which makes it - initially at least - slightly confusing to get to grips with, not least as the cabin is fairly stripped out, almost devoid of buttons and switches, with most controls devolved to the big, 14.6-inch central screen. It’s a car you need to be familiar with, to get the most out of. A bit like a PC.
Underneath that big bonnet and floor lie a 201 bhp motor driving the front wheels and 75.3kWh battery pack, claimed to provide up to 317 miles of range under the WLTP testing regime. A 180kW hook-up is claimed to offer a 10 to 80 per cent charge in just 24 minutes.
Hand stand
Open the door (the flush, mechanical handles are a bit of a faff; you have to push one end in to seesaw the other end out, tricky with just one hand, trickier still depending on which side of the car you’re standing on, and whether you’re right or left-handed) and you’re greeted with a very spacious, reasonably premium-looking interior.
The materials (much leatherette) are well-chosen; mostly soft to the touch and harmoniously installed. The overall look is plain but in a restrained, not mean, way. The cabin is airy - especially with the long, panoramic glass roof - the seats generous in size, even if there was no lumbar adjustment for the driver on the seat.
The biggest surprise is how much room there is in the rear; it almost feels like a London taxi, and with a big expanse of flat floor too, no transmission tunnel to spoil the roominess here, making it easier to herd children, shopping or dogs.
There’s plenty of head and shoulder room, while the boot is claimed to offer 427 litres of space with the seats up, expanding to 978 litres with the seats folded, so plenty of room for domestic removal chores.
An oddity in the front is that there’s no glovebox (just a couple of fold-out hooks for bags or shopping, which I would have thought would get in the way of the passenger’s legs) but there is a huge central cubbyhole under the front central armrest (cooled and heated in the Premium model) and more space below the central divider, where there are rather awkwardly-mounted power outlets (one USB-A port, one USB-C port and a 12v power supply).
Seats of power
The list of kit on the V is exhaustive, including - but certainly not restricted to - reverse tilt door mirrors, that big touch-screen (plus 8.88-inch LCD instrument screen), wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, phone and audio Bluetooth, online nav and music streaming, four-way manually adjustable steering column, heated steering wheel, six-way power adjustable driver seat, four-way power adjustable front passenger seat, three-stage smart heated & three-stage smart ventilated front seats, powered tailgate, wireless phone charging, a second-row USB-A port and a whole suite of automatic safety aids, 360-degree surround camera, even adaptive cruise control and rear crossing traffic alert (a great additional safety aid when reversing into a blind spot).
Spend £1,495 more, on the Premium Pack, and you also get real leather seating, massaging front seats, CoolHot box, air quality sensors, fancy paint and so on. It’s a lot to take in.
Importantly, buyers get an eight-year, 100,000 mile warranty (battery 125,000) and eight years’ servicing, breakdown and MOT. All attached to the vin not the owner, so transferable and applicable on all types of ownership (PCP, leasing etc). That’s a bold marketing move; very many buyers are more interested in this, than precisely how the car drives.
But how does it go? It all feels very... electric. It’s no fireball on the acceleration front compared to some (there’s plenty of urge but nothing neck-wrenching,) and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Acceleration from standstill in an EV is astonishingly rapid compared to a standard Internal Combustion Engine car – but also very boring. You’ll probably only do it once or twice, as a novelty. Initial impressions - thanks largely to that large expanse of bonnet, which doesn’t ‘fall away’ at the edges as some do - are that it feels very wide, making you wary of where you place it in traffic.
It felt wider, for instance, than the big Volvo XC90 I jumped out of to drive this car, whereas in fact the XC90 is several centimetres wider. Interestingly, I ended up parked right next to a similarly arctic-white Jaecoo and the resemblance between the two - including external dimensions - was instantly, notable, in case you’re wondering how big the V looks in the ‘flesh’.
Everything works smoothly, the windows go up and down fast, which is good, and the car responds crisply and smoothly to the accelerator without any delays or lurches. The ride was a tad fidgety, especially over London’s less well-paved roads, and the steering was a tad wooden, although many drivers won’t notice or care. It all works fine.
Big dipper
Vision out is reasonably good, although it feels as though the driver and passenger sit lower, within the framework of the car, than in some SUVs. The big, dipping rear view mirrors helped. Unfortunately, I discovered and turned on this latter feature only after reversing into a very tight spot up against a typical London kerb (uneven and lumpy), intending to let the back, tread area of the rear tyre make gentle contact with the pavement. Like some older Audis, however, the alloy wheels project ever so slightly beyond the tyre, making them prone to contact. Sorry, Aion, for the very slight scratch on the wheel. It can be tricky in London, Audi learned their lesson and slightly embedded their rims, years ago.
Any other dislikes? I’d like one or two buttons, for instance for the roof sunshade, enabling it to be opened or closed without the need to take your eyes off the road while fumbling through the screen. I found the lightweight key fob fiddly. Not only are the lock/unlock symbols faint, but occasionally, the car would inexplicably lock itself by the time I’d loaded our dog into the back, and walked around to the driver’s door. Sometimes, it failed to unlock immediately.
When unloading after a garden centre buying trip, each time I walked away, boot open and key in pocket, the horn started beeping. Later, while gardening, key still in pocket, the boot opened itself up repeatedly every time I approached. I asked Aion about this and it turns out that this is programmable; if I’d had time to burrow through the menus, discovered the autolock function and disabled it, all would have been solved. As I say, there’s a lot to take on board, at first.
Likes? Lots. There’s a nice amount of stowage beneath the boot floor for odds and ends, and of course the charging cable. It’s quiet, civilised, pleasant enough to drive and it feels practical, especially the big rear doors that open up to 90 degrees (beautifully damped internal door handles, too). Why can’t all car doors do this? It’s quick to charge (although I didn’t have the opportunity to do so) and the overall design feels clean and fresh
So while the driving experience is entirely unexceptional, it is the premium, modern feel, engaging looks, value for money, practicality, efficiency, long warranty package - and enormous amount of kit giving the Aion a luxury feel - that will surely make this car just as ubiquitous as other new brands from China, in the very near future.
