The Omoda E5 is meant to have a fairly upmarket really feel, and Hyundai and Kia are a specific goal. Nonetheless, there’s a whiff of tackiness to the trim in our top-spec Noble prototype take a look at automotive. Small particulars just like the chiny, chrome speaker covers, and the wave sample on among the plastic trim. It’s attempting a bit too laborious, in areas.
Nonetheless, the double wi-fi telephone charging pad is nice – particularly because it has its personal cooling vent, to maintain your telephone from overheating – and there are another neat touches together with display brightness controls which might be completely seen on the panel subsequent to the steering wheel. Speaking about illumination, although, the back-lit, touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel disappear utterly if it’s nonetheless mild outdoors and also you flip the headlights on. Don’t anticipate to have the ability to flip your music down when it’s foggy or raining closely, then.
Naturally, there’s an enormous, 12.3-inch touchscreen on prime of the sprint, which is housed along with the massive driver’s readout. Our automotive was but to have its ultimate software program replace, however even with the tweaks that we’re informed will occur earlier than the mannequin hits dealerships, the system will like really feel a contact dated. The graphics are a bit grainy, discovering among the automotive’s settings takes too lengthy (it’s a must to prod no less than three- or 4 occasions to show lane-keep help and velocity restrict warnings off), and the house menu icons and in-screen temperature controls are small and fiddly. It’s paying homage to MG’s touchscreen software program again when the MG4 was first launched, actually, and also you’ll discover the programs from Kia, Hyundai, Renault and (dare we are saying it…) even Volkswagen, usefully higher. Nonetheless, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are commonplace, so that you gained’t have to make use of the native system fairly often, anyway.
Rear passenger house is okay. You’ll get a few six-footers within the again with relative ease, though headroom is a bit tighter than in some rivals and there’s little or no foot house beneath the entrance seats.
The boot has a paltry 292-litre claimed capability, which is completely woeful and extra what you’d anticipate in a metropolis automotive than a household crossover. We’re a bit sceptical about that determine, although, and suspect that Omoda hasn’t included underfloor storage, because the boot actually doesn’t look so dangerous to us; you’ll get the massive store in there, no worries. There’s additionally a small frunk, though it’s shallow sufficient that you just’ll in all probability find yourself sticking your charging cables within the boot, anyway.
And for those who do raise that boot ground up – reward be to the automotive gods, it’s an electrical automotive with a full-size spare! We thought we’d by no means see the day, and when the E5 involves the UK it’s attainable that it’ll be a space-saver, however even that could be a big enchancment on a tube of gunk, or nothing in any respect.
