Omoda 5 Review (2024-present)

What is the Omoda 5?

Before we explain what the Omoda 5 is, you might well need us to explain what Omoda is first. Well, Omoda is a brand that was launched in the UK in late 2024, closely followed by its sister brand, Jaecoo, in early 2025. Both brands form part of a large Chinese automotive manufacturing company called Chery, which is big business in its home country, currently being China’s largest exporter of new cars. Chery uses various different brand names when exporting its cars to various different parts of the world, and Omoda and Jaecoo are the ones that the company has chosen to lead its charge in the UK and Europe.

The Omoda 5 itself is a mid-size family SUV that’s pretty much the same size as one of the UK’s best-selling cars, the Nissan Qashqai. Coincidence? We think not. It catches the eye with its impactful angular styling, while the heavily sloped coupe-like roof is reminiscent of the one found on the latest Peugeot 3008. And like that car, the Omoda 5 is offered with a choice of either pure-petrol or pure electric powertrains.

The Omoda 5 will try to tempt buyers away from more recognisable rivals with not only its styling, but also low prices (from around £25,000) and generous kit lists. Don’t go thinking that this is some cheap Chinese knock-off, though, because the quality on display all around the car is actually pretty impressive. As we’ll find out during this car review, though, there are other sacrifices to make for all this generosity…

How practical is it?

Just about practical enough, but without getting close to troubling the best-in-class in this area. There’s no shortage of space in the front seats, but in the rear seats, things feel rather tighter. Legroom is acceptable, although appreciably more limited than you get in a Nissan Qashqai, while the car’s sloping roofline also eats into the rear headroom. Passengers up to six feet tall will just about be okay, but anyone taller than that is going to struggle, so gangly teenagers might not thank you for choosing the 5. The cabin is a bit narrow to comfortably seat three across the rear bench, so it’s best to think of this car as a four-seater than can occasionally accommodate a fifth person for short trips.

The boot is rather underwhelming, too. At 380 litres, it’s about the same size as what you get in a family hatchback such as the Volkswagen Golf, but by the standards of other mid-size SUVs, it’s quite small. The space is also rather shallow, too, but at least there isn’t too much intrusion from the rear wheelarches.

There’s a false floor that levels off a small load lip, and when you drop the 60/40 split rear seats to free up more cargo space, that same false floor levels of a small step up to the folded seatbacks. Those seats lie flat, too, leaving you with an extended load area that’s level and stepless.

One of the slightly strange things about the Omoda 5 is that the interior differs according to whether you choose the petrol-powered car or the all-electric versions, and it differs in both design and quality (we’ve also observed this same approach in the Jaecoo 7 SUV that’s also made by Chery). Climb into the petrol car, and you’ll find touch-sensitive air-con control on the central dashboard panel, and a centre console that features both a stick-type gear selector and a large wireless smartphone charging pad. In the EV version, meanwhile, the gear selector lever is moved to the steering column, while the air-con controls disappear, leaving you to operate that system - along with many others (we’ll come on to this in more detail in a moment) - through the touchscreen. You’ll also notice different designs and integrations for things like the air vents and window switches, and the electric version also features some glossier panels and reasonably convincing wood-effect trims.

From a usability perspective, the petrol car is actually better because there’s more physical switchgear, meaning you’re not so reliant on the touchscreen. The quality feels convincing, too: although pretty much every surface you encounter is made of plastic, most of it feels reasonably posh in the way it’s textured and finished. Only a few panels in the lower reaches of the cabin let the side down. The quality of the materials in the electric version is of a more uniformly high standard, and along with the glitzier trim pieces on show, this makes for a slightly posher feel.

All versions of the 5 come with electric adjustment for the driver’s seat, and a very decent range of manual movement in the steering column, so finding a comfy driving position is fairly easy. However, a tiny rear window with chunky pillar either side means the your rearward visibility is rather hampered.

What’s it like to drive?

Like we’ve already said, the Omoda 5 is available in petrol-only and electric-only formats. The latter has a 201bhp electric motor powering the front wheels, and according to the official figures, it’ll cover the 0-62mph dash in 7.2 seconds and can achieve a top speed of 107mph. However, we haven’t yet driven it, so we can’t tell you how those numbers translate into real-world sensation. We’ll update this review as soon as we’ve had a bash in the EV version.

We have had a go in the petrol car, though. It has a turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine delivering 183bhp to the front wheels through a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic gearbox. It’s a little slower from 0 to 62mph than the EV at 7.8 seconds, but has a higher top speed of 128mph. The power and pace on offer looks fine on paper, then, but in reality, the way it’s delivered is problematic at best, and ruinous at worst.

The issue centres around a throttle pedal that’s both hugely oversensitive and woefully inconsistent in the way it operates. The result is that any minuscule variation in the position of the pedal has a massive effect on how the powertrain reacts, and it’s pretty much impossible to predict what that reaction will be, so driving the car smoothly is exceptionally difficult.

Here’s a for-instance. When you first pull away, you’ll press the accelerator down what you think is a reasonable amount, and the response from the engine will be lacklustre to the point of feeling like you’re desperately short of go. And then the next time you pull away from the mark, you’ll press the pedal what you believe to be an identical amount to the first time, but this time, the engine revs are sent sky-high, and you’ll find the car lurching forwards way more quickly than you intended, sometime to the point where the front wheels are spinning up as they scrabble for traction. And no matter how careful you are with your throttle inputs, the pedal is still all-but-impossible to modulate smoothly.

There’s more. If you’ve been stationary long enough that the stop-start system has cut the engine, then this whole process is prolonged annoyingly: press the go pedal, and you have to wait for a couple of seconds for the engine to fire up, the transmission to engage drive, and the wheels to start turning, and even after all that, you still have zero idea about precisely how much off-the-line pace your throttle input is going to get you.

Pick up speed on-the-move rather than off-the-line, and the throttle does become slightly easier to modulate, so it is possible to achieve at least some modicum of smoothness. But even then, the way the powertrain reacts will still take you by surprise occasionally, and you’ll also find that the responses of the throttle and gearbox are always annoyingly slow.

The Omoda’ 5’s petrol powertrain lacks plenty of polish, then, and unfortunately, so does the suspension, albeit to a lesser extent. It has quite a soft setup, but despite that, there’s an underlying tremor to be felt for too much of the time, particularly over scruffy urban road surfaces. Tackle a bigger bump or a pothole, meanwhile, and you feel more of a jolt through the suspension, which is then followed by a period where the car’s body bobs up and down for slightly too long. The ride gets a lot better at motorway speeds, where the suspension does a decent job of smothering bumps without there being too much in the way of vertical bounce.

The handling isn’t exactly game-changing, either. There’s a bit of body roll to be felt as you change direction, although this is totally forgivable in a family SUV, and you won’t be rolling around to the extent where anyone is going to start feeling queasy. More problematic is the rubbery, artificial feel of the steering which makes it feel less accurate than it might be, and the car generally feels bigger and heavier than it is. That’s the case both then changing direction and when you’re hard on the brakes, and it all adds an extra layer of untidiness to the way the 5 moves down the road.

The tone for the car's level of refinement is unfortunately set by the jerkiness and unpredictability of the powertrain, and the coarse scream made by the petrol engine when the revs are sent sky high on all-too-regular a basis. Aside from that, however, it’s actually not too bad. The engine quietens down nicely once you settle into a steady motorway cruise, and wind noise and road noise are both pretty well suppressed, too.

Technology, equipment and infotainment

The Omoda 5 is offered in two different trim levels, Comfort and Noble. Both are tremendously well equipped considering the modest amount of money you pay for them, with lots of luxuries provided as standard. In entry-level Comfort trim, those luxuries include 18-inch alloy wheels, rear privacy glass, LED lighting all round, automatic lights and wipers, single-zone air-conditioning, leatherette upholstery, powered front seat adjustment, powered windows, power folding and adjusting door mirrors, front- and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, keyless entry and go, and adaptive cruise control.

The upgrade to Noble trim earns you a good slice of extra kit on top, and doesn’t cost all that much in the scheme of things. As well as the items already mentioned, you’ll also enjoy dual-zone air-con, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a powered sunroof, a powered tailgate, and 360-degree parking cameras.

The upgrade to Noble also earns you a slightly enhanced infotainment system. In both, you get a pair of digital screens that sit side-by-side on top of the dashboard, one behind the steering wheel to deliver all your crucial driving information, and one in the centre of the dashboard to take care of all your various infotainment functions. However, the screens in the petrol version measure 10.25 inches while those in the EV version measure 12.25 inches.

With both systems, the level of functionality you get is largely the same: you get DAB, Bluetooth, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charging with cooling, and a voice assistant. But while the level of functionality is impressive, the system’s ease-of-use is rather less so. Several crucial and frequently used functions are buried too deeply within the menu structure, meaning that even the simplest tasks require too many taps and swipes, and the time all that takes is time that your attention is diverted away from the road ahead. You could try using the car’s voice control to perform such tasks instead, but during our time with the car, there wasn’t a single occasion where we issued a command that it both understood and carried out. Not one.

Omoda 5 running costs

The Omoda 5’s purchase prices will be key to its appeal for most buyers. Prices start at around £25,000 for the petrol version, rising to around £27,000 if you want the higher-spec Noble trim. For context, the cheapest version of the Nissan Qashqai, which has considerably less power and kit, starts at more than £30,000. If you’re considering the all-electric E5, then prices for that start at around £33,000, with a similar premium (actually slightly smaller) for the Noble trim. By comparison, the very cheapest version of the Peugeot e-3008 starts at around £36,000.

Go for the petrol version, though, and your fuel costs won’t be nearly so appealing as the purchase price. In a world where every petrol car claims to be a hybrid of some sort, there’s no 48-volt tech or electric assistance for the old-school powertrain in the Omoda 5, and as a result, the WLTP combined fuel economy figure stands at just 31.4mpg. That looks poor in isolation, and looks even poorer when you consider that the entry-level Qashqai return figures in the mid forties, and that’s before you’ve considered the full hybrid version.

The all-electric E5 has the potential to be much cheaper to run. Charging it at home is likely to cost you around £17, assuming that your domestic power is billed at the UK’s national average rate, and the official WLTP figures suggest that a full charge will take you up to 257 miles. That works out to less than 7p per mile, but do bear in mind that the car’s real-world range is likely to be considerably less than the official figures suggest, even in seemingly optimal conditions, and they’ll plummet even more quickly if you attempt to do long motorway slogs in cold conditions.

That home charge of the Omoda 5’s 61kWh battery is likely to take around 11 hours if you’re relying on a regular domestic three-pin socket, but getting a 7.4kW home wallbox charger installed is likely to reduce the charging time to more like six hours. If you’re in more of a hurry, then DC rapid charging is supported, but the maximum charging rate of 80kW is very slow in the scheme of things. Omoda quotes a figure of 28 minutes to charge from 30% to 80%, which doesn’t sound dreadful, but that only accounts for half the battery’s capacity. Many rivals will charge from 10% to 80% given that kind of time.

Omoda 5 reliability

It’s always difficult to predict the reliability of a brand new car, and you’re usually left looking to the manufacturer’s past reputation and performance in the area for clues. However, we can’t even do that where Omoda is concerned, because not only is the 5 a brand new car, Omoda is brand new, er, brand to the UK. As a result, the mechanical dependability of both the brand and the car are unknown in every respect.

You might well take confidence from the warranty provided with the Omoda 5, though. Like the much-lauded Kia warranty, you get seven years or 100,000 miles of cover - whichever elapses first - while the battery warranty on the EV version runs for eight years, but with the same mileage limit. RAC breakdown cover is also complimentary for the first year, and every time you get your car serviced according to schedule at a recognised Omoda dealer, this is extended by a further year, up to a maximum of seven years.