Luxury SUVs may seem like a grand experience from the outside, but driving a near-six-hundred-horsepower Rolls-Royce through Philippine traffic is absolute torture. Trading paint with tricycles in an SUV that costs as much as a small mansion out at Ayala Westgrove is the definition of insanity. I don’t care how nice the doorjamb umbrella is.
But the six-hundred-horsepower-EHS7 I’m driving now—an SUV from another brand famous for making state limousines—costs about as much as the tiny studios condos they’re building in that noisy construction site right behind my house. It is also much bigger inside than those slate gray coffins, and with its gigantic 111kW battery, I could probably live in it 24/7 if I wanted to.
A tempting thought.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing Hongqi. But in certain automotive circles, it is iconic. Like the Soviet ZIL, it is a marque associated with exotic limousines built for dignitaries and statesmen. Forbidden exotica out of the reach of most foreign enthusiasts. It does have its less glamorous side—building rebadged German sedans and Japanese taxis in recent years. But FAW—the corporate owner of Hongqi—has reinvested heavily in the brand and emerging EV technology. And the result—this all-new EHS7 luxury SUV—is so good, they’re exporting it to Western markets. A tall order for a brand very few westerners knew still existed.
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Styling
To look at, it certainly is something different. Where the EHS9 is the brand’s pseudo Cullinan, the EHS7 looks like something New Jaguar would have designed if it were taking inspiration from Louis Vuitton instead of Rimowa. No Chinese fan grille or square shoulders; just a sleek, ultra-modern sports SUV. There are embossed patterns embedded in everything that isn’t body-colored. A riveting chrome and red strip bisects the hood, ending with a tiny dot of a camera between the headlights, sitting like a jewel on the forehead of an Indian dancer. Razor sharp lines zip down the body towards the fastback hatch and split rear spoiler. Hidden door handles extrude noiselessly as you approach and retract as you walk away. Gigantic 21-inch multi-spoke wheels with textured hub-covers—looking like bits of some high-dollar tourbillon—glisten in the sunlight. And the whole thing is slathered with color-shifting lavender paint that had people come up remarking how pretty the whole thing was.
To a jaded motoring journalist who’s driven actual Rollers and Bentleys—there’s a bit too much exposed piano black and chrome-coated plastic to convincingly look like an Alt-Rolls. But the base EHS7 ships for less than a Toyota Fortuner GR-S. Most people don’t complain about chromed plastic on a Fortuner. Either way, the EHS7 is pretty slick. And it turns heads wherever it goes.
Interior
It’s even prettier on the inside. A humongous slab of glass sits over your head, running stem to stern. At night, I expected to see sequined ladies swimming in the sky overhead. Memory foam leather seats with suede inserts coddle you as you clamber in. While the vaguely Aston-shaped badge on the suede is plastic, that leather is the real deal, warm and supple. Twelve-way adjustment—with lumbar support, naturally—makes finding a proper seating position easy. There’s even power adjustment on the odd steering wheel—more on that later—with surprisingly strong adjustment motors. Once set, the car commits your face and preferred position to memory, and will slide the seat back generously to let you out when you open the door, and slide it back when you close it.
The layered waves and pavilions of the dash are a look reserved for Hongqi’s electric models. Beautiful slate-gray woodgrain and faux carbon wrap around the latchless door armrests and the sleek recessed A/C vents. But the star of the show has got to be that wraparound dashtop screen. Yes, I know, bleh, more screens, bleh bleh, but this is a particularly clever one.
The portion of the screen behind the wheel is shrunk down so as not to impede your view of the road ahead, but pushed forward inside the wheel so that you can still read it despite its size. The steering wheel—more a steering square, really—feels shrunk fit around that screen, which has a polished, expensive feel. Even the curved portions feel cool and solid to the touch.
Augmenting the instrument readouts is a gobsmackingly huge heads-up display projected onto the windshield.
There are a few touch controls under the screen, mostly HVAC shortcuts, but to actually point the A/C vents anywhere, you need to go into the menus and slide your fingers around the screen. Yes, it’s annoying. To be fair, the vents are much more powerful than the similarly frustrating hidden vents on newer BMWs, and they don’t cause condensation on control surfaces at night.
Underneath the buttons and decorative trim are twin cellphone shelves with that same logo pattern you find everywhere on this car. The left one is a ventilated 40W quick charger that keeps your phone slightly less toasty than most wireless chargers while still topping it up fairly quickly. Underneath, you get a lower-level shelf with more embossed trim, and behind it are a pair of cupholders and a fragrance emitter that looks like an infotainment control puck or an exotic transmission selector. It is neither. It just smells vaguely like flowers. Or the sea.
The actual shifter is a simple wand behind the steering wheel. No ignition button here. All you need to do to turn on the EHS7 is slide into the driver’s seat, press the brakes, and slot that wand into drive.
Powertrain
Once in drive, the Hongqi’s engine barks to life. Only there is no engine under that long hood. Instead, the system boots up with the most realistic fake V8 burble I’ve ever heard. Hyundai attempts this trick with the Ioniq 5 N, but the 5 N doesn’t have a kick-arse sound system with a gigantic subwoofer in the trunk. There’s an electric tingle as the sound reverberates through your fingertips. I know, I know, I’ve complained about fake engine noises before, but turned up to 11? I’ll bite.
Slotted into gear, the EHS7 moves off with an easygoing fluidity. The steering squaroid feels even odder on the move, with just two turns lock-to-lock and a quick electric action not unlike a Logitech game controller. There are eco and sport modes on offer, as well as some level of customization, but not the irritatingly intricately involved song and dance the 5 N puts you through. No. You want entertainment, you select Sport, and you’re done. The adaptive electronic dampers firm up automatically, the traction control loosens, and you get all six hundred electric ponies, no muss or fuss.
Floor the accelerator and the EHS7 rockets from 0-100kph in a claimed 3.9 seconds. With damp weather and poor track conditions, we managed 4.1. Close enough. The acceleration is brutal, sending loose items flying into the back seat, realigning your spine, and trying its best to peel your hands from the suddenly slippery steering squaroid sat in your lap. The tires scrabble for grip as the speed builds, the EHS7 happily hitting double the highway limit in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
Ride and handling
Suddenly, the weirdly quick steering makes sense. You need it to tame all six hundred horses. I’d like to say that this car hustles as well as it bustles—but the EHS7 isn’t a gravity-defying genre-bending super-SUV. It has great grip and composure, thanks to variable electronic dampers and gigantic staggered 255/45 R21 and 275/40 R21 Pirell P Zero EV tires. But even in its most hardcore mode, the EHS7 rides with more fluidity than the 5 N in its meekest mode—dampers set to ‘comfort’ and power train set to ‘chill.’ This is a Super Grand Tourer and Hongqi makes no bones about it. There’s no ‘race’ mode or even ‘race timer’ like you get on the BYD Tang. No gonzo body kit, red racing stripes, or blackout trim. This is simply a very fast cigar lounge on wheels.
Extra features
As such, you get subdued mood lighting and a glass roof that lets in starlight and neon glow when prowling the city after midnight. You know—typical cigar-lounge accommodations. You can dial up sporty red ambients, if you want, but cool blues and purples suit this car better. That subwoofer isn’t just there for fake engine noises; you can use it to play music or videos.
Unfortunately, where BYD gives you built-in YouTube, Hongqi gives you DailyMotion. Erh—well, it still sounds rather good. Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Bluetooth, all present and accounted for. I do wish that gigantic heads-up display had integrated Waze or Google Maps navigation. Maybe with the next software update. It does display lane-departure warnings and some basic obstacle-avoidance data, but the more detailed breakdowns—including info on motorcycles, pedestrians, traffic cones, and road markings—are on the central display. Neat stuff, but that should be up at eyeline rather than down inside the steering wheel.
In daily use, the driving aids work well enough. It’s one of the better systems out there, no complaints. The 360-degree cameras work a treat, and cognizant of the fact that the long wheelbase and giant wheels make tight turns difficult, the side view camera changes modes when you’re turning, giving you a better view of your wheels in relation to the curb.
To get all of this at this price, some sacrifices were made. For one, you don’t get the Lexus RZ-style electrochromic roof option or the Chinese market four-wheel steering system. But you do get dynamic damper control and the variable steering ratio that the local Lexus skimped on in the RZ. That variable ratio is uncanny and makes the EHS7 feel more agile than it should. There’s also an AI voice assistant. Neat addition, yes, but the cute little robot is no Siri, sorry.
On the practicality side, the EHS7 has the CCS plug required to interface with the more common Level 2 charging stations at Shell and SM, and a gigantic 111kW battery that can charge at up to 400kW at compatible Level 3 stations—doing 10-80% in just 20 minutes. There’s a free home charger and an emergency charger with a surprising 3-5kW capacity, but you’re not going to get all of that unless you’re plugged into a heavy-duty utility outlet. Plugged into your regular 220V socket, you’re still looking at over a day of charging to get anywhere.
Fully charged, that battery is good for 540km of range, though this assumes mostly highway driving. Driven normally in traffic, that drops to around 450km, the EHS7 doing around 3-4km/kW, about what you’d expect for an all-wheel drive bank vault with six hundred horses.
Verdict
In the end, is the EHS7 a convincing luxury crossover? Well, yes. There are bits that feel a bit gaudy—pretentious, even—but Hongqi has the technology and performance to back it up. All at a price undercutting most competitors on the market. Only the Zeekr 7X, which we previewed a while back, offers similar specs for similar money. But the Hongqi benefits from a greater sense of style—the EHS7 is less about sportiness and more about swagger. For those who want to make a grand entrance when they pull up to the hotel lobby, there’s very little at this price range that does a better job.
SPECS: Hongqi EHS7 Flagship
Price: P3,080,000
Powertrain: Dual electric motors with 111kW battery
Power: 602hp
Torque: 756Nm
Layout: All-wheel drive
Seating: 5
Score: 9/10
More photos of the Hongqi EHS7 2026:
