Aion V Luxury Shows Legacy Brands How to Make Cars

Aion V looks like a slightly naughty pug dog who has been roused on.

She is a hefty lass so to get her diminutive payload to 400kg, the spare wheel is absent. There is enough room, but the 25kg weight saving was thought pukka, yet an 11kg oven/fridge/freezer was a better inclusion. If you think buying a bigger legacy brand gets you more payload, read our story on such flagrant fairy tales HERE.

It is all about priorities my loves and I’d nix the oven in favour of a wheel.

Aion V is RAV4-sized yet feels more spacious. It has faster charging than the PHEV Toyota and a far longer range with the ability to rescue other EVs with a 7kW V2V/V2L capacity.

You may ask why I am comparing a Chinese EV SUV to a Japanese PHEV SUV and I am very happy to oblige with an answer. We were told for a decade that EVs were more expensive than dinosaur-burning museum relics. Aion V Luxury is nearly $22,000 less than the RAV4 which has far less in it. Rav4 has token AWD thanks to a sewing machine glued to the rear axle, but that does not get it anywhere near realising any off-road aspirations.

---

---

When I started writing this review it was to be all about the Aion V Luxury and its capacious cabin and nifty appointments. But the more I thought about it the more flummoxed I became at the utter lack of understanding of Toyota’s bosses. No wonder they are having mass attacks of the vapours. The biggest brand in Australia was pantsed by a brand that didn’t exist here a year ago.

RAV4 is allegedly brand new, but most of it isn’t, and what there is, looks a decade old. The drivetrain continues the Japanese obsession with fossils, and no, I don’t mean their management.

Aion V on the other hand, while by no means cutting edge, makes the Toyota look and feel like a cattle dray.

There is no frunk so the cables will go where the spare tyre would live. You’d also throw the user guide and other papers into that space too, what with the lack of a glove box and all. Fear not, you get 2 pop-out hooks instead.

The cabin is quiet, but the cut-price rear suspension and noisy tyres can make themselves known at speed or when meeting bumps in corners. Again, she is not a sports car, she is a reasonably-priced 5-person city cruiser. You’re not going on the 50 road trips a year you tell yourself you need. But, if you do pop out of town for a spot of nature nurture, you can take your comfort with you. Stay in a wee tent by all means, but you’ll still have 3.3kW of power from the adaptor port to play with.

Let’s get down to a few particulars.

The rear hatch is electric and there is proximity auto lock and unlock. The side door handles pop out by pressing the leading edge inward. TOP TIP: use your middle finger to press in, and the other 3 fingers to grasp the handle. Doing it any other way needs two hands and a severe head wagging.

The cabin is an absolute triumph.

Like many Chinese cars, the clever details are concealed beneath a veneer of luxury. The luxury is more of an impression than a reality, especially in the bright orange clad test car. Quaintly called Olympus Brown, the bright orange theme uses a vibrant, saturated clay-orange hue that deliberately mirrors the iconic, high-end bespoke luxury leather palettes. It closely matches dead-posh Euro-snobs like Ferrari’s Cuoio, Bentley’s Mandarin, and Rolls-Royce’s Tan hides to deliver that premium, coach-built je ne sais quoi.

• Orange/Tan Trim: Olympus Brown
• Beige Trim: Sahara Sand
• Black Trim: Jet Black

So convincing is it that one finds oneself caressing the bejeezus out of the dash and doors. Even the scratchy plastic seems to be drowned out by the mug lair colour of the trim.

Unlike RAV4’s dated and poorly executed cabin, Aion V looks far less cobbled together from Barbie’s budget basement bin. Lines are simple and considered. The ADiGO in-house Android tablet and speakers are far easier to use, but it is the heated/cooled massage front seats that leave the RAV4 in a cloud of soporific irrelevance.

Legacy brands including Mazda and Toyota are twiddling their collective thumbs wondering where things went so badly tits up. They came in with cheap and cheery “Jap-Crap”, as my dad used to say. But up market they went, leaving a vacuum to be filled by those cheeky chaps from Korea.

Then Korea came over all superior and abandoned the entry level as if the thrifty buyer no longer mattered.

Screaming headlines chaps, they did, and they do. The canny punters are flocking in droves to the value tsunami from China. Quite simply, Japan’s rabid anti-EV antics have only been outdone by their stratospheric pricing. Mazda’s “premiumisation” was a shocking example of misguided arrogance. The attempt to push punters proved pointless.

Once number 2 literally, it is now number 2 metaphorically. It is slipping, at increasing pace, down the sales charts like a spiv on skates. Mazda’s numbers are a horror show as its rapidly ageing range is embarrassed by the newcomers’ technology supremacy and pricing strategies.

As if that wasn’t enough, Aion V has an 8-year warranty.

But enough about the why, let’s get back to the what.

After turning off all the unwanted Belgian bullshit, gongs and beeps are all but silent.

ANCAP’s tethering to Euro NCAP has manacled Australia to bizarre bureaucracy that mandates a state of nanny-ism that distracts drivers, only to chide them for being distracted.

All of that lane guiding, blind spotting and klaxons are a direct result of a bloke from Brussels. He has completely ruined driving for all but the most dim-witted of incompetents. Geely gathered all of that nonsense into a single menu, GAC didn’t. It should.

Like many of its countrymen, the Aion V uses a Tesla-esque instrument layout on the steering wheel. The stalks do gears and cruise on one side, and lights and wipers on the other. Scroll balls and a few buttons take care of ancillary functions.

After a 180kW drink, the 75kWh battery is good for 500-ish kilometres.

There is no 1-pedal driving but the regenerative braking lessens the need to move feet inappropriately. 0-100 comes up in a leisurely 7.5-ish seconds, but ride is all very soft and padded. Some find the gentle waft to be unsatisfactory, but those are usually motoring writers who consider any kind of cushioning to be a barrier to cornering at light speed. I’d rather be comfortable thanks.

If I could change anything, it would be the upgrading of the torsion beam rear suspension. It can be clunky, bumping through corners taken with too much vim.

Traffic is remarkably Zen as the tunes stream from the DAB+ while the autonomous systems go close to driving themselves. The driver can sit back, relax and allow the world to wash by.

See the specifications for the full list of tasty goodies HERE.

Conclusion

I loved the Aion V Luxury. The few extra bucks to get the full offering over the base model are well worth it. The shaded glass roof, freezer/fridge/oven, and massage seats are must haves. Legacy brands can’t match this level of comfort.

See our video for more.

Likes

• Heated, cooled massage seats
• Fridge, freezer and oven
• Quiet, spacious cabin

Dislikes

• No spare wheel
• Clunky torsion-beam rear
• No glovebox

GAC Aion V Luxury vs Toyota RAV4 GR Sport AWD

Feature	GAC Aion V Luxury	Toyota RAV4 GR Sport AWD
Powertrain Type	Pure Electric (BEV)	Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV)
Driveline	Front-Wheel Drive (FWD)	All-Wheel Drive (AWD)
Price (MSRP before on-roads)	$44,590 AUD	$66,340 AUD
Indicative On-Road Price	$47,142 to $48,248 Drive-away	$72,802 to $73,490 Drive-away
Combined Power	150kW	227kW
Torque	210Nm	272Nm front motor, 123Nm rear motor
0-100km/h	~7.9 seconds	Not published by Toyota
Front Suspension	MacPherson Independent Strut	MacPherson Independent Strut
Rear Suspension	Torsion Beam Semi-Independent	Trailing wishbone
Chassis Tuning	Comfort-focused family ride profile	GAZOO Racing Performance Tuned
Handling Stabilisers	Standard front anti-roll bar stabiliser	Lateral Front Performance Damper + Rear Performance Brace
Wheel Track	Standard factory tracking configuration	20mm Wider Wheel Track (10mm per side)
Steering Setup	Standard Electric Power Steering (EPS)	Exclusive GR Sport Electric Steering Mapping
Battery Capacity	75.26kWh (LFP)	22.7kWh (Lithium-Ion)
EV-Only Range	510km (WLTP)	144km (NEDC)
V2L Power Output	6kW car-to-car, 3.3kW via adaptor	1.5kW auxiliary outlet
Spare Wheel	No (Fits aftermarket space saver)	Temporary space saver
Central Screen	14.6-inch Touchscreen	12.9-inch Touchscreen
Driver Display	8.8-inch Digital Cluster	12.3-inch Cluster + Head-Up Display
Branded Audio	9-Speaker In-House System	9-Speaker JBL Premium Audio
Cabin Amenities	6.6L Fridge/Oven (-15°C to 50°C), massage seats	Heated front seats, 2 wireless phone chargers
Factory Warranty	8 Years / Unlimited km Vehicle Warranty (8-Year Unlimited Battery)	5 Years / Unlimited km (Extended to 7 years with dealer logbook service)
Service Intervals	12 Months or 15,000km	12 Months or 15,000km
Capped Service Cost	$169 per service (First 5 Years / 75,000km total)	$325 per service (First 5 Years / 75,000km total)
5-Year Service Total	$845 AUD	$1,625 AUD

Download spec sheet HERE

More GAC Stories

• GAC Emzoom Luxury Review
• GAC S7 Hits Sydney 2 Years Before Anyone Can Buy One
• 2026 GAC EMZOOM Premium Undercuts Small SUVs at $22,990

---