Name: GAC Emzoom Luxury Review
Item: GAC Emzoom Luxury Review
Author: Alan Zurvas

GAC made some errors with Emzoom. The base model initially came with no rear seat pretensioners, but that’s since been fixed. The traffic sign software is missing so it and overspeed warning are absent in ANZ models. There is no driver distraction warning either. All of this means there is no ANCAP rating simply because GAC would want 5-star, and without the above, it would be Zero Star. That’s a no-no for even the most modest of motorists.

The Body of a Goddess

You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re gawking at an entry travel pod, mass produced for every-day consumption. It looks expensive, and in Luxury trim, has tasteful inclusions such as the electric sunroof and deploying handles.

They sense your presence, or at least the key, and unlock and present themselves, or open if it is the rear hatch. The rear hatch swings up after flashing the lights, hands free following the same prompt.

The detail for $26,990 (drive away) is astonishing.

Above: 2026 GAC Emzoom Luxury Pretty but Flawed

#gacemzoom, #gac #miniSUVReview, #byd, #GayCarBoys

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White GAC EMZOOM Premium small SUV, front three-quarter view beside a grey wall

GAC EMZOOM Premium, front three-quarter

GAC EMZOOM Premium, side profile

White GAC EMZOOM Premium small SUV from a high rear three-quarter angle

GAC EMZOOM Premium, rear three-quarter

GAC EMZOOM from a front three-quarter angle, as part of its Australian launch.

The GAC EMZOOM is featured in this gallery image from the Australian launch.

A white GAC EMZOOM SUV is shown head-on in a studio. It has a large, intricate front grille and sharp headlights.

The GAC EMZOOM is featured in this gallery image from the Australian launch.

ABOVE: GAC Emzoom Luxury

I remind you of the tat we got a decade ago for the same money. Not only did legacy brands foist upon us the cast-offs from Barbie’s bargain basement, they gave us rubbish warranties, nasty plakky fittings, and argued about front and rear sensors, let alone cameras here and abouts.

Emzoom showers us with a cornucopia of surprise and delight.

Most of the surfacing highlights how far Chinese design has come, and influences in the carefully placed sculpting eschew the generic and rather bland ubiquity that permeates the entire industry. While that smooth-as-silk is a pleasant foil to the coarse, unrefined 90s and naughties Japanese boxes, it is now itself becoming similarly omnipresent.

Just as driving through Australia’s capital cities reveals the age of character suburb development, so car design unveils the changes in both thinking and manufacture.

With the Chinese OEMs deciding Australia will be their “away game”, their own home market continues to cool. These value propositions can be expected to grow in popularity.

The Cabin and technology

For the moment, we can marvel at what can be done for the money. The one luxury money can’t necessarily buy, is space. Emzoom has it by the ballroom-load. The back seats, swathed in genuine simulated fake artificial cow, provide a cosy spot to nestle with oodles of legroom.

Luxury has a full glass roof, and when the electric roller shade is open, the cabin is bathed in gentle light filtered through a cleverly tinted outer layer. We tested during the dying days of winter, so the sun was a welcome sight, but travellers would be done to a turn if the shade was left open during summer.

The Premium base model does feel a trifle poverty-stricken in places, but the Luxury has 3 USBs, an A in the back, and A and C in the front, with a 12v outlet for good measure. In addition, a 50w Qi charger is in the front console.

The driver seat has 6-way power controls and ventilation for good measure, but lacks heating. Imagine having a sucky or blowy seat, but not heating in either front pew. GAC seems to have spent their money in places where it can be seen, and that’s a shame because some of the function leaves a little to be desired, and here things start to show the “built to a price” bones.

I have to start with the uber-naff plakky crystal gear toggle. It will be fingered, a lot. Its shiny newness will soon be a tired remnant of showroom bling. Surely a glass-or-nothing attitude would have given it the personality it deserves. Glass would be a smile-inducing stunner, but a clear plastic bauble looks like the ghost of Christmas past.

You can’t separate the centre console from the centre tablet, as their functions are so closely aligned. The gear toggle is also the drive mode switch, which in turn needs fettling in the menu. Why? It has 2 positions but there are 3 modes (that I’ve renamed Sluggish, Dim Witted, and Psychotic). It toggles between sport and either eco or comfort, whichever is selected in the menu. Then each can have its own steering feel, but all are in different menus. Dear god what is this madness?

This is just the start of spelunking that will have you darting all over the cabin like a demented woodpecker. Functions are split between the steering wheel, console, upper console, door armrests, and centre screen. And, many have duplicates in the screen menu.

You can interrogate the spec sheet yourself, we won’t bore you rigid with what you can read in a list.

What’s in, what’s out? What’s cool, what’s crappy?

GAC ballsed this up utterly. There is no ANCAP rating, because were Emzoom to be submitted it would probably score a big fat ZERO. Why? There is no blind spot monitor, only some naff side view cameras, a twin version of Honda’s awful turning camera that came on with the indicator.

Then there is the much hated over-speed warning and driver distraction warning, and I am not complaining that they are missing, I’m cranky that the traffic recognition is missing too. You have to leave your Google maps up to see the zone limit.

There is no Head Up Display, fair enough at this price, but there is fully automated parking. What the actual? Try to use the park assist, I double-dog dare you. It will truly send you into either a soporific stupor, or a frenzy of tears. There is a button in the car menu accessed from the small car symbol on the dash, not the big car symbol, that one will take you to the main menu. The main menu has power windows, hatch, roof, and shade. The Park button appears in the top left menu bar, only when it can be used. The car always scans at low speed and pops up the tiny wheel symbol up near the CarPlay button. Why? Why isn’t it just the all the time?

The Park button also appears when the camera is on, but not when the indicator camera is on. By now, I was contemplating a bucket of gin and tonic. Once you learn the foibles, you can get it to work.

It is, without a doubt, the worst laid out Android-based user interface in my experience. Yes, Adagio is based on Android Open Source Project, of course. Look at the video because trying to describe it in words would be like trying to do War and Peace on one page.

The Drive, oh mar darlings, the drive.

By now my heart was sinking. I spent almost a week battling the intransigent DSG transmission, which along with every CVT, makes me lose the will to live. The calibration of the DSG is so bad that the clutches grab and release making parking in tight spaces a blood sport.

Sticking the mode into sport and planting the loafer is a quite satisfying 8 seconds to the hundy, however there is such a hullabaloo it sounds like it is going to fire its pistons though the bonnet.

Driving a petrol car after a succession of vastly more able electric and PHEV cars is a shock to the system. For a similar price, BYD Dolphin Essential is on promo. Sure it is much slower, but it is an EV. The Atto 2 is bare bones PHEV driving, but, it is an EV until the battery runs out. Choice has started to become a headache.

So the PHEV and EV competitors in mind, GAC offers this gorgeous, comfortable extremely well equipped mini hatch/SUV/SEV with the most annoying transmission in history. It lacks the annoying overspeed warning and traffic sign readout and rear cross traffic alert.

While we’re on the highway, the lane steering is adequate but gets rather distracted, but auto cruise does a great job in heavy traffic. Left in Eco mode and auto cruise, Emzoom doesn’t carry on like a bucking bronco as it does under a foot.

Is it a goer? Yes or no?

I loved Emzoom, then I started it and tried driving with the mode set to sport, big mistake, huge. I nearly ran down an unsuspecting staff member going about her day. Whilst that would have made quite the story, it isn’t one I’d have wanted to tell.

The audio is great once given a dose of bass, and unless really pressed, the torsion beam rear suspension is fairly decent. Push either the rear end, or DCT and they’ll both snap at you like a recalcitrant puppy.

Emzoom will get better with updates but it is being sold now, as is.

I loved it until it broke my heart.