The Aion V is the first car from Aion to arrive in the UK, and it’s going straight into one of the busiest and most important parts of the electric car market: the family SUV.
However, it has a very important USP: what Aion calls a Great 8 ownership package. That includes an eight-year warranty, eight years of servicing, eight years of roadside assistance and MOT test fees covered from year three up to year eight – that could save long-term owners a fair bit of cash, and it’s also transferrable between owners.
It’s facing some tough competition with brilliant cars like the Skoda Elroq, Kia EV3 and Renault Scenic, all of which already understand what British EV buyers want: decent range, quick enough charging, plenty of room, easy-to-use tech, a sensible price and, ideally, a dealer and ownership experience that doesn’t involve crossing your fingers.
Aion is not yet a household name here, but the company behind it is far from small. It is part of GAC, one of China’s largest car makers, and there’s evidence inside the V that this is not some hastily thrown-together newcomer. In fact, the cabin is probably the biggest surprise. It feels seriously upmarket, with lovely materials, smart details, plush seats and the sort of touches you’d expect in something far more expensive.
The Aion V keeps things simple, too. There’s one main version, one battery, one motor and one core price of £36,450. For that you get a 75.3kWh battery, a claimed range of 317 miles, 201bhp, front-wheel drive and rapid charging at up to 180kW. You also get a huge amount of standard equipment.
So, on paper, the Aion V looks like a very strong new entry. But in person, it’s a little more complicated.
The styling is not its strongest suit. This isn’t a car you’ll be straining to look at in shop windows as you drive past. It’s a bit boxy and ungainly, with a few odd design details, like the chequered flag-style motif on the C-pillar, the scalloping along the side sills and the piano black wheel arch surrounds, which somehow make the 19-inch wheels look smaller than they are. It’s not ugly, but it’s certainly not pretty.
Inside, though, it’s a different story. The quality, space and equipment all feel genuinely impressive, but the driving experience is more of a mixed bag. The steering has a pleasing weight to it and performance is brisk enough, but the ride is firmer than you might expect from a family SUV.
That leaves the Aion V as one of the more interesting new EVs of the year: polished in some areas, slightly frustrating in others, but absolutely worth taking seriously.
How we tested
I gave the Aion V a thorough test over a week, with the highlight being an overnight trip from London to the Lincolnshire coast with my daughter and Elvis the black Labrador on board. As well as the weekend away, the Aion also took care of other Fowler family duties, from driving through clogged London streets to a trip to the local supermarket. So the car got a thorough test of its practicality, while I also put all the tech to the test and drove it for a fair few hundred miles to properly assess how easy it would be for you to live with.
Aion V: £36,450, Aionauto.co.uk
Independent rating: 8/10
- Pros: Upmarket interior, lots of space, impressive kit, strong range, excellent warranty and servicing package
- Cons: Firm ride, awkward exterior styling, average stereo, not cheap
- Price range: £36,450
- Battery size: 75.3kWh
- Maximum claimed range: 317 miles
- Maximum charging rate: up to 180kW DC, 10–80 per cent in 24 minutes
Battery, range, charging, performance and drive
The Aion V comes with a 75.3kWh LFP battery, front-wheel drive and a single electric motor producing 201bhp and 240Nm of torque. That gives it a 0–62mph time of 7.9 seconds and a top speed of 99mph, which is perfectly competitive for a family-focused electric SUV.
There’s no four-wheel-drive version, no long list of battery choices and no complicated trim structure to work through. In one sense, that makes the Aion V refreshingly straightforward. In another, it means the car has to get its single version pretty much right from the start.
The headline figure is the range. Aion claims up to 317 miles on a full charge, which puts the V right among the strongest cars in this class. On a long run from London to the Lincolnshire coast and back, the Aion V was impressively efficient. It felt like one of those EVs where the range display doesn’t immediately start to tumble as soon as you join a motorway, which is always reassuring. It’s still a big family SUV, so speed, weather and temperature will all make a difference, but it felt like a car capable of proper real-world distance.
Charging is strong, too. The Aion V can rapid charge at up to 180kW, which means filling from 10 to 80 per cent can take as little as 24 minutes, or claimed 18 minutes for a 30 to 80 per cent top-up. On the way home from Lincolnshire, it was charging at the maximum rate of the 160kW charger I was using, adding over 100 miles in around 15 minutes. That’s very useful in a family EV, because it turns a longer journey into one with a quick coffee stop, not its own diary entry.
The 11kW onboard charger means a full zero to 100 per cent charge takes around 8.5 hours where the right AC supply is available, such as at home or a wall box charger at work. There’s also a heat pump as standard, which helps efficiency in colder weather, and vehicle-to-load capability, so the car can power external electrical devices through an adapter.
The battery itself is one of the most heavily promoted parts of the car. Aion calls it Magazine Battery 2.0, with the cells housed in separate heat-resistant compartments and monitored by an active thermal management system. The company makes big claims for its safety testing, but for most buyers the more tangible reassurance will be the eight-year, 125,000-mile battery warranty.
On the road, the Aion V is a mixed bag. Performance is brisk enough without ever feeling dramatic. It pulls away smartly, has enough instant response for town driving and feels comfortable joining motorways or overtaking slower traffic. There are three drive modes – Comfort, Sport and Eco – plus different levels of regenerative braking and a one-pedal driving mode.
The steering is better than expected. It has a nice, weighty feel and gives you a decent sense of what the front end is doing. It inspires confidence, and there’s a grown-up solidity to the way the Aion V tracks along faster roads. It does not feel vague or floaty, and you can tell there has been real attention paid to how the car drives.
The problem is the ride. Aion says the UK had a big part in the chassis tuning of this car, and the suspension has been calibrated for British roads and British driving habits. But for a family SUV, it feels too firm. It can be uncomfortable over bumps, especially from the back seats, and while the body control is good, I’d happily trade some of that slightly sporty feel for more everyday comfort.
That’s the slightly puzzling thing about the Aion V. In a family SUV, comfort should come before handling crispness. The car is fine on the motorway, where it settles down well, but on rougher town and country roads it feels busier than it needs to. Unless you’re an unusually enthusiastic family SUV driver, you may well prefer an alternative with a softer set-up.
Still, the essentials are strong. It has proper range, quick charging, decent efficiency and enough performance for everyday life. If Aion can dial a little more comfort into future versions, the V would be even more convincing.
Interior, practicality and boot space
This is where the Aion V makes its strongest case. Open the door and the cabin immediately feels more expensive than expected. The quality and materials are exceptional in places, with lovely finishes, high-quality seat materials, neat stitching and lots of squishy plastics in the areas you touch most often.
My test car had the optional leather seats and French Cream interior, which showed off the quality beautifully. It looked bright, airy and suitably premium, although I think I’d choose the darker Noir interior if I were living with the car every day, especially with dogs, children and the muddy weekends they inevitably bring. Another interior colour scheme, called Bright Tan, is available as an option when you go for the Premium Pack.
There are some really nice design details, too. The subtle Aion logo on the centre console looks smart, the illuminated panel in front of the passenger adds a bit of theatre, and the knurled finish around the cup holders feels like it belongs in a much more expensive car. Even the door handles feel properly posh, with a damped, high-quality action.
The blend of plush materials is one of the Aion V’s best qualities. Some new EVs look impressive in photographs but feel a bit hollow when you start prodding around inside. The Aion V mostly avoids that. It has a solid, considered feel, and the cabin has a more Western sense of finish than many newer Chinese-brand cars.
A reason for that could be how Aion’s parent company, GAC, has long-standing manufacturing links with Toyota and Honda in China, and there’s a sense that some useful learning has found its way into this cabin. It feels well assembled and genuinely premium, more so than most Toyotas and Hondas in fact.
The front seats are heated and ventilated as standard, with electric adjustment for both front occupants and memory for the driver. The steering wheel is heated, too, while rear passengers also get heated seats. Add the £1,495 Premium Pack and the Aion V gets leather upholstery, front seat massage function, a 6.6-litre food storage container called the CoolHot Box, and a tray table on the back of the passenger seat.
That tray table is like something straight out of a Bentley. It’s sturdy, nicely integrated and genuinely useful for a rear-seat passenger using a laptop or having a snack. The CoolHot Box is another feature that sounds gimmicky until you actually use it. It can cool drinks, freeze items or keep a takeaway warm, and you’d be surprised how often you find a reason to use it.
Space is excellent. The Aion V is 4,605mm long, 1,854mm wide and 1,686mm tall, with a 2,775mm wheelbase, and it makes very good use of those dimensions. There’s loads of legroom in the back and the rear seats recline by up to 137 degrees, providing a fair bit for added comfort and helping give the rear cabin a relaxed, lounge-like feel.
Rear access is also very good, thanks to doors that open wide. That makes it easier to fit child seats, help older passengers in and out, or simply load the everyday family clutter that seems to follow any car used properly. There are Isofix child seat mounts on the outer rear seats, rear air vents, USB charging and a rear centre armrest with twin cup holders and storage space.
There are lots of handy cubbies inside, including nice double cup holders, useful door bins and a good amount of space around the centre console. Aion says there are 30 storage spaces in total, which sounds like a claim made by someone who has spent a long afternoon counting every cubby, but the point stands: it’s a practical cabin.
The boot is a decent size and shape, too. Capacity is 427 litres with the rear seats up and 1,638 litres with them folded. There’s a three-tier boot floor system, which gives you flexibility for hiding charging cables, creating a flatter load area or keeping messier items separate. The boot opening is wide, and the shape is useful.
It’s also Labrador friendly. Elvis was comfortable in the back and could see out well, when he wasn’t wondering what the little smiley face motif on the inside of the tailgate below the rear glass was all about.
Technology, stereo and infotainment
The Aion V gets a large 14.6-inch central touchscreen and an 8.9-inch digital driver display, and the good news is that the main screen is much easier to use than in many Chinese-brand cars.
Too often, basic functions end up buried in menus, while safety alerts and driver monitoring systems beep away in the background like an overexcited microwave. The Aion V is better than that.
There are no hard buttons for the heating and ventilation, which is still a shame, especially in a family car that should major in ease-of-use. But the shortcut icons along the bottom of the touchscreen are useful and make the system much easier to live with. They give one-tap access to climate settings, seat controls, audio volume, the heated rear screen, the 360-degree camera, door locks and the panoramic roof blind. It’s not as good as proper physical climate controls, but it is one of the better touchscreen-first systems I’ve used from a new brand.
The general usability is way ahead of many Chinese rivals. The menus are clearer, responses are quick and the car makes it relatively easy to turn off some of the more annoying alerts. That includes the nagging beeps and bongs for things like speed limit warnings and the attention awareness system. In some modern cars, that process feels like trying to crack a safe. In the Aion V, it’s much more straightforward.
The attention awareness system didn’t seem to get on very well with my glasses, though. It was a bit too keen to tell me to look ahead, even when I was looking ahead. That becomes irritating quickly, but at least it’s easier to switch off than in some cars.
Wireless Apple CarPlay worked very well. The display is big, clear and stable, which is exactly what you want. Android Auto is included, too, along with Bluetooth, online navigation, online music, a WiFi hotspot and connected app functionality.
Like that of many new cars, Aion’s smartphone app lets owners check the battery charge, start or stop charging, schedule charging, pre-condition the cabin, lock or unlock the car, flash the lights, sound the horn and send a route to the car. There’s also a Book a Trip function that can prepare the cabin and battery ahead of a regular journey. Owners with the Premium Pack can even set the CoolHot Box temperature remotely, which is exactly the sort of feature that sounds ridiculous until you realise you would probably use it.
The safety and driver assistance kit is generous. The Aion V has a five-star Euro NCAP rating and comes with seven airbags, including a front centre airbag. It also has autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning, rear collision warning, lane departure warning, lane departure prevention, emergency lane keeping assist, blind spot detection, rear cross-traffic alert, door-open warning, traffic sign recognition, adaptive cruise control, integrated cruise assistance, intelligent high beam and a 360-degree camera.
The 360-degree camera is useful, especially because the Aion V is quite bluff and boxy. It makes parking and tight manoeuvres easier, and the car’s lighter responses at low speed help in town.
There are two disappointments. The first is the indicator, which is so quiet that I found myself driving along with it still on. That sounds small, but it’s exactly the sort of everyday irritation that owners will notice.
The second is the stereo. The ADiGO-branded audio system has nine speakers and 360W of output, but it’s only okay. No more than that. It’s a shame, because the cabin feels upmarket enough to deserve a more premium-sounding set-up. The system has different sound zones and equaliser settings, but it never quite has the richness or clarity you’d hope for.
Even so, the technology experience overall is strong. The screen is clear, the layout is sensible, smartphone connection works well and the driver assistance kit is comprehensive. It feels like Aion has understood that in-car tech needs to be easy to use every day, not just impressive for five minutes in a showroom.
Prices and running costs
The Aion V costs £36,450 on the road, which puts it directly into the heart of the electric family SUV market. That means it isn’t cheap, but it comes with a huge amount of equipment as standard.
Every Aion V gets the 75.3kWh battery, 317-mile claimed range, 201bhp motor, 180kW rapid charging, 19-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic glass roof with electric sunblind, heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, a heated steering wheel, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 14.6-inch touchscreen, an 8.9-inch driver display, a 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise control and a long list of safety systems.
The £1,495 Premium Pack is worth considering. It adds leather seats, massage for both front seats, the CoolHot Box, the tray table for the left-rear passenger, a larger illuminated vanity mirror (you’ll never know how handy that can be!) and a cabin air quality sensor. It also unlocks the option of Holographic Silver paint and the French Cream or Bright Tan interior colour schemes, each costing £195.
Paint choices are simple enough. Wilderness Sand metallic and Arctic White pearlescent are standard, while Night Shadow Black, Galaxy Blue, Sea Fluorescent Grey and Holographic Silver cost £675. Holographic Silver is only available with the Premium Pack.
Running costs should be helped by the Aion V’s efficiency. The official figure works out at around 3.7 miles per kWh, and my longer journey suggested it can deliver decent real-world economy. As ever with an EV, the biggest savings will come if you can charge at home, especially on a cheaper overnight tariff.
But the ownership package is the big story here. Aion’s Great 8 package includes an eight-year, 100,000-mile vehicle warranty, an eight-year, 125,000-mile battery warranty, eight years’ servicing, eight years’ roadside assistance and MOT test fees from year three up to the eighth year from first registration.
That is a real bonus. EVs generally need less maintenance than petrol or diesel cars, but eight years of servicing is still valuable, and the fact the package transfers with the car could help used buyers, too. Buy a five-year-old Aion V and it could still have three years of servicing and MOT cover remaining – nice!
Aion has also tried to address some of the usual worries around new brands. Support from the AA helps with roadside assistance, workshops and mobile servicing, while a UK parts warehouse in Bury St Edmunds is intended to help keep repairs moving and insurers happy. The Aion V also sits in insurance group 32, helped by repairability work carried out before launch.
The verdict: Aion V
The Aion V is a strong first effort from a brand most UK buyers will still be getting to know.
It does some things extremely well. The interior is genuinely impressive, with quality and materials that feel more premium than expected. There’s loads of space, lots of standard equipment, a useful boot and some lovely touches, especially if you add the well-priced Premium Pack. The picnic table, CoolHot Box, knurled trim and plush seat materials all help the Aion V feel more expensive than it is.
It also has the fundamentals you’d want from an electric family SUV. The 317-mile range is competitive, rapid charging at up to 180kW is useful, performance is brisk enough and real-world efficiency was encouraging on a long run. Add in the eight years of warranty, servicing and roadside assistance, and the ownership proposition looks very strong indeed.
But it isn’t perfect. The exterior styling is awkward in places, the stereo should sound better, the indicator is far too quiet and the attention awareness system was confused by my glasses. More importantly, the ride is firmer than it should be for a family SUV. The steering is nicely weighted, and the body control is good, but comfort should be the priority in a car like this. I’d trade some of the dynamic sharpness for a bit more softness over broken British roads.
That means the Aion V is not quite the complete package. It is seriously upmarket inside, packed with kit and backed by one of the best ownership offers around. But it’s not cheap and finds itself up against some really polished, better-known rivals.
Even so, it deserves attention. If you value cabin quality, space, equipment and long-term reassurance, the Aion V has a lot going for it. Just make sure you try it on the sort of roads you drive every day before deciding whether the ride works for you.
Aion V rivals:
FAQs
How long does it take to charge?
The Aion V offers up to 317 miles of range from its 75.3kWh battery, with 180kW DC fast charging allowing a 10–80 per cent top-up in 24 minutes.
How much does it cost – is it worth it?
At £36,450, the Aion V is not cheap, but it comes with lots of equipment, strong range, fast charging and an impressive eight-year warranty, servicing and roadside assistance package.
Does Aion replace batteries for free?
The Aion V comes with an eight-year or 100,000-mile vehicle warranty and an eight-year or 125,000-mile battery warranty.
Why trust us
Our team of motoring experts have decades of experience driving, reviewing and reporting on the latest EV cars, and our verdicts are reached with every kind of driver in mind. We thoroughly test drive every car we recommend, so you can be sure our verdicts are honest, unbiased and authentic.
With more than 30 years of experience, Steve Fowler is one of the UK’s best-known automative journalists. Steve has interviewed key industry figures, from Tesla’s Elon Musk to Ford’s Jim Farley, and is a judge for both Germany’s and India’s Car of the Year Awards, as well as being a director of World Car of the Year. When it comes to electric vehicles, Steve reviews all the latest models for The Independent as they launch, from Abarth to Zeekr, and he uses his expert knowledge of car buyers' needs to provide a comprehensive verdict.
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