2027 Geely E5 First Drive Review

If you travelled back 10 or 15 years and told someone Chinese cars would come to Canada, they might expect products that were “cheap,” “slow,” or “of questionable quality,” with designs eerily similar to cars we already know. And back then, they probably weren’t too far off the mark.

The Chinese car industry has come a long way, though, and anyone who’s been paying attention knows China has been selling cars in places like Europe and Australia for a while now, with considerable success. Since the beginning of 2026, the Geely Group, which includes premium subbrands Lynk & Co and Zeekr, has sold almost 800,000 cars outside its home country. They definitely got Mark Carney’s attention because, in case you missed it, the Prime Minister announced that Canada would allow up to 49,000 electric cars from China into the country at a massively reduced tariff of 6.1 per cent.

Since that deal, several Chinese automakers have announced plans to enter our market, and that includes Geely, China’s second-biggest car company. As of this writing, no model-specific plans have been announced yet, but we went to a proving ground in France to test a Geely EV that’s extremely likely to make it to our shores: the E5.

It Just Looks Like a Car

Normally, how an everyday crossover like this looks on the outside wouldn’t matter much, but we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t “copycat” baggage associated with cars from the E5’s country of origin. Those who have already made up their minds about what they want to see might notice some Porsche Macan influence, especially from the back, and sure, if you squint, you might see it. But from the front, it’s a pretty original design, and taken as a whole, it doesn’t feel any more derivative than the average crossover already roaming Canadian streets.

More importantly perhaps, it simply looks good. The headlights are angry without being obnoxious, it pulls off the no-grille look well, especially with a front plate, and it’s proportioned to blend in with regular traffic. After spending almost a week in France where Chinese cars are a fairly common sight, they don’t stand out, for better or worse. They’re simply part of the furniture because, well, most of them just look like cars. The Geely E5 just looks like a regular car.

That Screen, Though

This decidedly nice, normal vibe extends to the cabin. A huge 15.4-inch screen eclipses that of many luxury cars and is the main attraction, but the controls, surfaces, and facilities surrounding it are also done well. The visual design here is practical and attractive. Stitched surfaces, sharp displays, 256 colours of ambient lighting, and a luxury car-inspired look make this a far cry from the spartan penalty box you might’ve assumed in 2011, but interior plastics are merely OK for the class.

The interior is also intuitive and easy to use. The shifter is a simple stalk behind the steering wheel like you get in a Mercedes, there’s a huge, clicky volume knob right where your hand falls, and dual wireless phone chargers somewhere in between the screen and armrest are a Chinese car innovation that’s already influencing Western car cabin design. The door handles are actual handles (not a given these days), there’s a huge storage area between the front passengers, and, as the Chinese-engineered vehicle’s real pièce de resistance, the infotainment system is on another level compared to what most Canadian drivers are used to.

Not only is the display huge, colourful, and sharp, but the software is extremely responsive. Menus appear when they’re summoned without a lick of loading or lag involved, and based on our admittedly limited exposure, the layouts are easy to make sense of. The most revealing part, perhaps, is that it only takes about 10 seconds of poking around the average Chinese car’s infotainment system to realize how behind and slow the rest of the industry is in this regard. Sixteen-speaker audio also sounds pretty good by mainstream brand standards.

One of Geely’s claims about the E5 is that it’s a compact crossover similar in size to the Toyota RAV4 or Honda CR-V, but it offers much more interior space than that category would suggest. In the back seat, legroom feels about on par with a current-gen CR-V, but the headroom feels like a clear step up.

The 461-L cargo area may look a bit small at first glance, but lift the floor, and you get a deep hidden compartment that looks big enough for the average two-person household’s grocery haul. The rear seats fold down to yield up to 1,877 L of storage, and the frunk adds another 160 L.

Decent Range

A fancy screen, generous space, and agreeable design only get you so far, but the E5 also delivers solid EV range. Granted, Europe’s WLTP test cycle is easier than Canada’s or America’s EPA cycle, but it’s rated at 475 km with the larger 68.4-kWh battery. For reference, the base Tesla Model Y gets 463 km, though that’s under the more stringent North American testing. With DC fast charging, the E5’s claimed 10 to 80 per cent charge time is 28 minutes.

Driving the Geely E5

Taking the Geely E5 out on a closed test course designed to simulate real-world curves, straights, and tarmac, it proved a perfectly pleasant and comfortable electric crossover. Steering felt light at low speeds, heavier at high ones, and appropriately responsive while making turns and lane changes, while the soft suspension remained plush over a corrugated section but maintained reasonable composure when thrown around bends.

Even hustling it around chicanes and flinging it over hills in a manner few E5 owners ever will, the car never felt like it was being asked to do anything it wasn’t designed to do – like similar vehicles from, say, Korea, Germany, or Japan, real engineering has gone into how this thing drives. By compact electric crossover standards, in fact, the E5 feels slightly above average in this department.

With a single motor up front, the E5 makes 215 horsepower and 236 lb-ft of torque, which feels right for a car of this type. Electric torque makes it sufficiently peppy taking off from a stop, and it feels just powerful enough to make “emergency” highway on-ramp merges mostly doable. It makes a soft, simple EV whir when you step on it hard, but remains silent most of the time. Zero to 100 km/h, in case you were wondering, takes 6.9 seconds, and the top speed is 175 km/h.

Final Thoughts

All of this combines to make the Geely E5 one of the better mainstream compact electric crossovers out there, regardless of country of origin. It drives with a sense of purpose, gets respectable range, the in-car screen tech is class if not industry-leading, and it’s extremely pragmatic as a physical package.

After experiencing products like the E5 and seeing how Chinese cars as a whole fit in a place like Paris, I don’t think we’re in for a complete Chinese car takeover here in Canada any time soon. However, I do think they’ll eventually become part of our automotive landscape just like how Japanese and Korean cars did in the ‘80s and ‘00s – a lot of those early Hyundais weren’t great, in case you forgot, but I challenge you to walk 500 metres down any major street in Canada today and not spot at least one Elantra.

With that in mind, Geely sells the E5 in the United Kingdom and France for the equivalent of about $60,000 CAD in British pounds and euros. That's about the same ballpark as a high-trim Toyota bZ or Kia EV5, so no, don’t expect bargain-basement pricing if or when this car comes to Canada. Fortunately, the Geely E5 doesn’t feel like a bargain-basement car. In fact, it feels pretty darn good.