Zeekr 009 in Shanghai: a luxury Chinese Rolls-Royce rival?

It’s the world’s third largest country by area, has the second largest population (India overtook it as the most populous in 2023, but only just), and is a one party state ruled by the Communist Party of China (CCP). In fact, as of 2024, China has 1.43 billion people, dwarfing the entirety of Europe which only has roughly 742 million. It’s an industrial powerhouse, a global superpower, an absolute titan of production. A behemoth that has begun to set its sights on the global car market.

Photography: Jonny Fleetwood

A fact that means legacy carmakers holed up here in Europe need to be properly worried. Why? Well, with the the spear tip of Chinese innovation led by electric vehicles, bluntly, Europe’s going to struggle to keep up. With governments mandating EV sales targets, China is leading the way in battery production and electric car manufacture, and once there’s momentum in Chinese manufacturing, it’s a big old non-oil tanker to turn.

Let’s look at some numbers. There were more than 100 EV only carmakers registered in China this year. In 2019 it was 496, but the failure rate is absolutely brutal. Those that have survived are big, backed, funded and more than competent. In the UK alone we’re seeing Build Your Dreams (BYD) enter the market with the Atto 3, Dolphin, Seal and Seagull models, and – odd names aside – the potential is there. GWM, Chery/Omoda, Nio, XPeng, Aiways and Zeekr are all intent on a slice so far, and that’s before we even mention MG (controlled by state-owned SAIC) which has had great success with well priced, very competent electric cars slipped under the radar via a ‘heritage’ brand whose EV output has as much to do with a musty MGB as LEDs do with candles.

Of course, there are lots of issues surrounding the political situation and much wider industrial and ecological concerns, but without being glib about it, we’re going to focus on the cars, and try and figure some stuff out. Mainly because there are some things that just don’t quite work for the picky and staid European markets. Given that Europe has always been a bit sniffy about a ‘Made in China’ tag – something that used to imbue thoughts of cheap mass production – that’s not much of a surprise, even when most households will have multiple high quality Chinese made items knocking about. But it could be put down to much more prosaic reasons – China has different tastes, wants and needs. It’s a market unto itself, and China is still learning.

Let’s take some – admittedly very broad – ideas for consideration. For example, the idea that Chinese cars aren’t as good to drive as European ones. Largely analogous to the same accusation that used to be levelled at America, with the same root cause... Chinese infrastructure is a bit different to European. Roads can be both brand new and billiard smooth, or a bit rough and ready, and the Chinese taste tends to lean towards comfort. Languid cars are preferred. It’s also a cultural thing in that there hasn’t been – up to now – the wider car culture that we have in Europe. Cars used to be a more niche hobby in China, so sports cars haven’t really been on the agenda, and sporty feeling cars haven’t been needed or preferred.

MG figured that one out early with the MG4, getting UK engineers to twiddle with the car’s ride and handling to tweak it more for the UK. It was a success – not perfect – but better suited than, say, the BYD Dolphin, which feels much less specific. In the same vein, SUVs are popular because they cope with every road condition, and larger cars – rather than ones for commuting – tend to be multiseater, because Chinese families run multigenerationally. You’ll often see grandparents with both kids and grandkids. That feeds into a tendency to prefer rear seat kneeroom over luggage space, leading to weird – to us – long wheelbase versions of otherwise normal saloons. Shout out to the LWB Passats and Audi A4s that aren’t uncommon.

Another big thing about how the Chinese view their cars is about how they interact with them. Connectivity and the user experience (UX), as well as the user interface (UI). Broadly, the Chinese are familiar and comfortable with tech (as an example, a big city like Shanghai is pretty much cashless these days, from TG’s experience – it’s all via mobile apps on your phone like AliPay or WeChat Pay), and that transfers to the domestic cars. So screens are high def, processors are top end, graphics next level. Some Eurocentric systems look positively 8-bit by comparison, but the Chinese predilection for going all out can make them seem a bit... cartoony. Where a pared back and stylish graphic might turn into a full-on B-movie film trailer just to change a car’s mode. Again, it’s about tastes and preferences, but it all counts.

One of the biggest tells for the Chinese market is in the broad concept of what a luxury car looks like. Obviously global heritage brands – like, say, Rolls-Royce – have a worldwide cachet that translates through expensive lifestyle cliches, but domestic market product can look quite different. Take, for example, the Zeekr 009. Europeans see a shiny looking minivan with a Greek temple for a grille, but it’s a full on luxobarge, nose built architecture and all. In China, the grille signifies confidence and prosperity – a bold statement of arrival – it’s just bigger than even a Rolls-Royce’s temple of chrome. It also lights up and is animated, which is on the fun side of bonkers.

But the 009 really is luxury – just a different interpretation, rather than fake. It’s an all-electric six seater with dual motors and twin powered sliding doors. There’s either a 116kWh or absolutely enormous 140kWh version of CATL’s CTP 3.0 Qilin lithium battery, chucking out 536bhp and doing 0–62mph in 4.5 seconds, with ranges of between 436 and 510 miles – albeit on the much more generous Chinese light duty cycle. It rides better than anything like this really has a right to – again, very squishy for Europe, but perfect for China – and is made with the kind of materials and precision that 90 per cent of European manufacturers would kill for.

There’s a big, comfy rear bench, lovely seating up front, and a pair of faintly ridiculous captain’s chairs in the middle. Chairs that recline like business class airline seats, have six massaging functions, are heated and cooled. But it’s the details that seem the most impressive. There’s a camera in the roof alongside the 15in flip down monitor so that you can take a Zoom call on the go and not have the camera pointed up your nose. Foldout tables for working, headrest speakers for taking calls, supplemented by an outrageous 20-speaker Yamaha sound system. The beautifully rendered clock in each door is actually an iPad-like screen that changes to the individual climate control, and there’s voice and face recognition, as well as an AI personal assistant. Everything is soundproofed. Everything.

And the tech goes for the driving experience as well... there are beautifully rendered screens up front that sweat detail and functionality, with 30-plus advanced driver assistance systems. The parking sensors that actually count down the centimetres to touching being an obvious but brilliant addition. But there are also seven 8MP and four 2MP cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars, and a millimetre wave radar, full speed range adaptive cruise control, remote control parking, automated lane change and the usual lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition, front and rear cross traffic alert, and blind spot monitoring. You want value? In China, the top version costs just £65k. For this level of kit and refinement, that’s a steal.

To drive, it’s fast, quiet, refined. The steering is numb and the ride very soft, but adaptive air suspension helps – and could be tuned differently. It never feels taut – nothing weighing three tonnes plus really could be – but for cocooning passengers in a bubble of high speed executive transport, a gussied up Mercedes Sprinter with a live rear axle doesn’t cut it. And if you want ridiculous space, there’s a four-seat version, presumably for a quick game of five-a-side in the back when bored. It’s mega. But it isn’t what Europe is used to.

Of course, the Chinese aren’t trapped in a bubble, and it shows. Where things aren’t quite suited, the companies involved simply employ Europeans to tailor the cars to fit as any manufacturer with global product might do. In explicitly more European cars like Volvo and Polestar, there are more subtle graphics and calm design – the Chinese versions get completely different operating systems. In the UK Polestar has Google baked in, but the CCP doesn’t get on with the US company all that well. Where materials and colours have different global aspirations – the Chinese are currently going for bright pastels and technical fabrics – there are different palettes available for different markets.

A company like Zeekr is a case in point – the design department is staffed by a mixed company of Chinese and European designers, the engineers closely benchmarking cars across the spectrum – most notably Porsche for its 001 saloon/ shooting brake. And China learns spectacularly quickly, refining and changing product in timescales that make European makers look cumbersome. A new Chinese EV might take two to two and a half years to get from a clean sheet to production – in Europe a four year timescale isn’t uncommon.

Even the dealer experience is different. With brand differentiation a big deal in China, some of the dealers are fantastic. Zeekr’s Shanghai setup has a bar, workspace and lounge. You can pop in after work for the kids to do homework, relax with friends. It’s a far cry from the often stark and unwelcoming main dealers in Europe, where you’re often overjoyed at having a seat and a coffee machine. It keeps you in the corporate bubble, promotes new products, sells those peripherals.

Of course, this is a snapshot. There are arguments that government subsidised exports will destroy domestic European production unless punitive import tariffs are imposed, worries about working practices and unaligned aspirations for emissions – there are much bigger questions at play here. But as for the car industry, the Chinese market really is waking up, and it’s innovative, fast moving, interesting and well funded. In 2024 and beyond, ‘Made in China’ is going to have very different connotations indeed.