2025 Zeekr X review (inc. 0-100 & braking): Is this 'legacy EV's' worst nightmare?

CarExpert

Tesla - legacy EV brand - is experiencing a huge sales glut in Australia. So will it be newcomers like the 2025 Zeekr X that give it even more grief? With a barrage of new Chinese electric vehicles coming this year, we're going to see even more choice for consumers. Paul Maric finds out whether this is the way to go if you're after a new EV.  Zeekr 009 vs Rolls-Royce Cullinan drag race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66XGuXsggAY  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Zeekr content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/zeekr More Zeekr X content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/zeekr/x  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 01:04 Interior: 03:18 Infotainment: 04:47 Safety tech: 07:17 Practicality: 07:59 Charging: 11:29 On the Road: 12:01 Driver aids: 19:59 Acceleration & Braking: 21:25 Verdict: 23:03  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #zeekr #ev #review

Transcript

00:00nice 2.79 seconds that's the only cup holder so to access that while you're driving it's quite

00:10difficult to do and i just think it's a bit of a weird spot for a cup holder g'day i'm paul and

00:15this is a zika probably a brand you've never heard of parent company is geely which is chinese brand

00:21that owns volvo polestar zika a number of other companies as well so this is an interesting one

00:27because it's kind of uh you know being under that umbrella they all have to do different things this

00:31shares a platform with the volvo ex30 it's undercut it in terms of price this is the zika x just under

00:3857 grand for the rear wheel drive long range version that we get in australia so really good value for

00:43money from that point of view especially compared to the volvo option it also shares a platform with

00:48the smart which used to be a mercedes-benz brand so a little bit of confusion all around there now

00:52today we're going to do a detailed review of this car so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts

00:56of this review you can use the time codes that are on the screen or if you're on youtube you can

01:00scroll down and use the chapters below now let's talk about design all of your colors are free of

01:05charge so you can pick any of those it's not going to cost you any extra this is an out there design

01:11and i tell you what it absolutely turns heads i don't know if it's because people don't know what

01:15it is or you know they like the look of it not entirely sure just yet but uh the design is

01:19definitely different and out there so you've got a cluster of leds up the top there and then headlights

01:24located in this bottom section down here with a bit of aero down the side there this is your zika

01:30logo it's repeated on the back there in text camera down the front there for the 360 camera and around

01:35the side here you've got piano black on the wheel arches 19 inch alloy wheels with a machined finish

01:41there and then piano black on the inside this is rear wheel drive but it is available as an all-wheel

01:46drive as well for a little bit more money so the interesting thing is there's a what they call a

01:52a convenience package that you can basically option onto this for an extra four grand that brings you

01:56a lot of the features that come i guess standard on a tesla model y which this kind of competes with

02:01it is smaller than a tesla model y but by the time you add the four grand on you're very close then to

02:06the all-wheel drive version so kind of could be better value for money but um i'll run you through

02:10that a little bit later on uh camera here on the side indicator built into the wing mirror

02:15interesting looking wing mirror as well it's got a frameless design on it so it sort of just sticks

02:19right out onto the edge there you've got a full glass roof these interesting door handles so

02:24basically when the cars lock this comes back in and sits flush and then to open the door you just

02:29put your hand in there and give that a pull and uh frameless windows there as well and the back

02:34here you've got this sort of black section that closes in on itself and then has the wraparound

02:39lights come around to the rear with me so around the back here you've got the full led tail lights

02:43the zika lettering there that i mentioned it's quite cool it's got a sort of 3d look to it the x

02:48now the interesting thing is actually do a people mover version as well and we did a drag race between

02:54that and a rolls-royce cullinan which was good fun so click on the card on the screen there to check

02:59that one out uh brake lights integrated into the top here and then tiny little wiper there for that

03:05glass and a button there to release the boot camera there and piano black diffuser down the bottom as

03:10well so let me know what you reckon about the design and what do you think about the price

03:14you think it is too expensive let me know in the comment section below so we are inside the zika

03:20x this is what the key looks like it's an interesting one so you've got unlock uh the the sort of self

03:27parking feature from the outside uh you've got the boot and then lock and then on the back you've got

03:32the zika logo now it is a proximity sensing key but you also get these cards as well similar to

03:37a tesla there is a phone app as well but i haven't been able to get it to work it just shows

03:41you know the availability for a test drive so it just may not be enabled yet for australia

03:46now let's talk about what the interior looks like um look i think it is actually quite nicely

03:51presented you've got a big screen there in the center i love the fact that you've got a screen

03:55ahead of the driver it's probably one of the the things i hate the most about teslas you just don't

03:59have anything ahead of the driver to give you an idea of what you're looking at the top spec or if you

04:03get the convenience package it also comes with a giant head-up display as well so you really are quite

04:08sort of spoilt for for features here but they do sort of draw the line because it is missing stuff

04:14like you've got manual seat adjustment for the passenger no seat heating you're going to spend

04:18extra for all that stuff so it is a bit weird there in terms of the spec but on your touch points nice

04:22and softer in the center soft on the door as well how soft is it we've got our durometer we've tested

04:28the main surfaces in this cabin if you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested

04:32before there is a link in the description below now build quality what is it like so that all feels

04:38really solid even though that's like a cantilever beam that sort of feels pretty solid now that

04:42all feels pretty good as well let's do our door slam now let's talk about infotainment this is

04:50probably one of the the key things the battleground with electric cars is just getting the best sort

04:56of software and technology that you can inside the cabin now this is interesting because this shares a

05:02platform with some of those other brands i was expecting to see like a polestar or volvo infotainment

05:08system but it is different to those other brands so this instead has a screen that's around sort of

05:1315 inches in size with an infotainment system that i haven't used before and you know on on the sort

05:21of first glance i've had a bit of a play with it it all seems to work pretty well it's it's pretty fast

05:25and smooth you've got all the features you expect here like spotify built-in apps you have smartphone

05:31mirroring which again is a feature you don't find on some of these cars so it's good to see that's

05:35actually fitted to the vehicle and in addition to that it's also got some voice recognition

05:40features let's test this out i'll ask it to drop the windows good morning good morning

05:46can you please drop the driver's window

05:52okay let me just get a little tricky here

05:54hey raise the driver's window halfway

06:04there you go all right so not too bad uh very very good um in addition to that i mentioned the

06:10smartphone mirroring so i'll show you what apple carplay looks like so it's a wireless setup sort of

06:15works fairly well it is a little bit clumsy when you're trying to sort of go between menus for example

06:20when you do have it in carplay if you go and change uh some temperature settings or you have

06:24to change one of the other settings that sometimes doesn't default back to the carplay screen which is

06:29a little bit annoying um but the fact that it has it i think is is a good thing and the fact that it's

06:32wireless is also a good thing as well i'll show you what android auto looks like so full screen as

06:38well but it appears this actually needs a cable couldn't get that to work without the cable so

06:43uh you know that's pretty good then on the radio front you've got dab and fm you also have

06:48spotify built in standard sound system is a seven speaker sound system it's okay nothing sort of

06:53too crazy you can option as part of the convenience package or standard in the all-wheel drive a

06:57yamaha branded sound system which is significantly better but um the standard one sort of just does

07:02the job head of the driver you've got the display i mentioned before gives you all your critical

07:06functions like the gear that you're in speed range etc etc so good to have that there just a handy

07:13feature to just glance down on so you don't need to take your eyes off the road while you're doing

07:16stuff now safety let's talk about that you've got an auto dimming rear vision mirror you've got a

07:22blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror there is uh sort of adaptive cruise control with

07:27lane support and also auto lane changing which we'll test a little bit later on front rear parking

07:31sensors you have a rear cross traffic alert and a 360 camera i'll show you what that looks like

07:37uh there it is there so quality's okay uh nothing sort of too crazy

07:41um yeah look it's it's fine it'll it'll do the job it actually works uh quite well in low light

07:48conditions as well then you have a number of different settings here in terms of what you

07:52want to be able to see plus a parking feature as well and it's what the horn sounds like now let's talk

08:00about practicality and we'll start off with your connectivity i'm going to disconnect this and show

08:06you this so 60 watt charging and 27 watt depending on which sort of way you go you've got wireless

08:12phone charging up here which is 50 watts so pretty sort of impressive uh configuration there in terms

08:18of those options you've got a 12 volt outlet that's buried sort of in this section here

08:23terms of your other storage um i'm sort of in two minds about this when i was driving here this

08:28morning i tried to i bought a coffee that's the only cup holder so to access that while you're driving

08:35it's quite difficult to do and i just think it's a bit of a weird spot for a cup holder it's just

08:39not very well thought out but in saying that you do have this cover to sort of conceal any valuables

08:46and you've got this sort of document holder up the front here as well if you need it bag hook as well

08:52you do have this console too which is quite deep and that's also where you're going to find your 12

08:56volt outlet too so no glove box which is kind of random no sunglasses holder either so storage is

09:02good but could be a little bit better now on the comfort front you've got dual zone automatic climate

09:07control but no seat heating no seat cooling both features that are standard on the the new model y

09:13that's about to launch in addition to that you've got manual steering adjustment so you've got tilt

09:19and reach adjustment there and all of your mirror controls are then adjusted through the screen

09:24electric seat adjustment for the driver manual for the passenger so you can go forwards backwards your

09:28backrest can go forwards and backwards no lumbar adjustment unfortunately and then you can only

09:34lift the back of the seat as well there is seat memory here in in the screen when you do adjust

09:39the the seat and that is linked to then your driver profile so presumably if you sign into another

09:44vehicle it will then reset and and sort of pull all your settings from the previous car that you drove

09:49now on our reach test uh all of this stuff is fairly easy to reach while you're driving okay

09:55second row what's it like back here uh knee room is okay toe room is not very good at all it's um

10:01it's very squashy there headroom is uh not too bad so there's really not a huge amount of space back

10:07here uh if you look at this as a model y competitor this is this feels much smaller than a model y so

10:13yeah it's just a little bit cramped back here uh you've got one usbc charger port just here

10:18um now this handle is actually to remove um this this whole uh module as they call it and you can

10:25basically install like a fridge and other stuff in there as well you've got little mat pockets back

10:29there center armrest here as well which kind of oh that's not too bad kind of robs you of space a

10:35little bit but it's not the end of the world couple of cup holders there and then our window test does it

10:38go all the way down so it's auto up and down no no it doesn't now cargo space uh so push our little

10:48button there powered tailgate so look i guess this follows on from what i said about this not really

10:55being a model y competitor this is a tiny boot compared to that so uh it's really only sort of

11:01just over 350 liters worth of space available here a decent storage under the floor there but sort of

11:06nothing too crash hot there is a tiny frunk as well it's about 15 liters in size just for cables and

11:13other bits and pieces but you can kind of see once you put a mid-sized suitcase in there the whole thing's

11:19basically uh taken up you can expand the space by dropping the second row and then if you do drop the

11:26second row it gives you just over 1100 liters of space now before we go for a drive let's chat

11:31battery and charging so 64 kilowatt hour usable capacity on the battery it's an ncm battery which

11:38is the type of battery you only really want to charge to 80 or 90 percent regularly you've got

11:41both ac and dc charging ac charging on the entry level up to 7.2 kilowatts and then dc charging up to

11:48150 kilowatts with an average of around 111 kilowatts so okay but not sort of amazing stuff

11:55wltp driving range is around 440 kilometers as well

12:02so we've just hit the road in the zika x now sorry about the air con noise it is it is hot today it's

12:09sort of 33 but it's the sun has just got some bite to it so you're going to hear that running in the

12:13background uh just in saying that could do with slightly more air conditioning as well it is um yeah

12:20just not quite sort of intense enough for the australian heat there's sort of heat radiating

12:24through that glass roof really don't understand this is common to a lot of electric cars they

12:28all have this glass roof but it just radiates so much heat into the cabin that you have to then

12:32overcome with air conditioning so it's a bit of a weird one um i'm going to switch off all the beeps

12:37of the bongs because this has all of those as well unfortunately every car that's been released this year

12:43has to have all that stuff and you know if you're the owner of the car you just switch it all off

12:49because it just annoys the heck out of you so let me quickly turn all that off now

12:55okay there we go that's all off it's a piece of quiet now let's run through the drive train here so

13:01this being uh the single motor it's rear wheel drive which is great because i don't know front wheel

13:06drive it was kind of the the cheap and easy way to do small cars a while back because you didn't have to

13:12have a drive line that ran down the back of the car it was far less complex and it suited smaller

13:17cars and and you could save money and a couple of manufacturers carried that onto electric cars and

13:23often they did it because they shared a platform with their internal combustion uh front wheel drive

13:27equivalent whereas now that you don't really necessarily uh you know incur too much cost by having

13:33a rear motor as opposed to a front motor that gives you the benefits of having dynamic handling and

13:38and hopefully that's what we're going to see when we go for a slightly faster drive

13:41here in terms of the actual driving experience it's let's start off with the motor so 200 kilowatt

13:47electric motor on the rear axle 343 newton meters of torque that's all pretty standard for an electric

13:52vehicle with this size of battery and i say that because if you have too much torque you end up

13:59spinning the rear wheels especially in the wet and because electric cars have virtually instant torque

14:04it becomes a bit of a safety issue so they're all capped around that 300 to 400

14:08newton meter mark for rear wheel drive uh vehicles with this size of battery because they all weigh

14:12roughly the same and that is going to mean an acceleration of 0 to 100 in around six seconds which

14:17we'll test a little bit later on and in terms of economy uh zika claims uh between 16 and 17 kilowatt

14:27hours per 100 kilometers uh i measured it earlier where i'd done sort of predominantly highway driving i was

14:32pretty impressed with it it was around the 16 kilowatt hours per 100 k's mark which is kind of

14:37pretty close to what you'd get out of uh mainstream efficient products like tesla and some of the

14:42hyundai products as well so i'm quite sort of satisfied with that terms of the ride uh the ride also

14:48was well is surprisingly good um last night when i was driving this uh i thought to myself when i've

14:54sort of been in around the city speed humps cobblestones that sort of stuff i thought this is really

14:58quite a sort of sorted ride feels like they've put a lot of effort into to giving this a proper

15:03ride and handling tune and especially here on the 19s it doesn't feel all that bad at all same story

15:08with sound deadening it is really quiet inside the cabin even on coarse chip roads this is how it went

15:13when we put it up against our calibrated sound meter if you do want to see how this car compares

15:17to other electric cars we've tested there is a link in the description below

15:20now let's see what body control is like because soft ride normally means hectic body control now

15:29we do this test at 130 k's an hour it's the maximum speed limit in australia which gives us a good sound

15:35understanding of how good body control is when the ride gets choppy for an overtake

15:42it actually feels pretty good so nice and soft to give you comfort over the over the undulations but

15:48importantly still gives you lots of body control at the top cars that are overly soft won't go uh

15:54sort of down quick enough for the next undulation and end up crashing over it and and causing just

15:59this really uh sort of seasick inducing uh sort of feeling behind the wheel whereas this actually

16:05feels pretty good now sean just mentioned before that he's he's in the back there doing all our sound and

16:12other camera related things and uh he's saying that that it's not as comfortable in the back seat so

16:18from from here it feels great but um maybe not from the back seat okay bumpy road time do this at 90

16:25k's now it gives us a good indication of what the ride is like over corrugations and stuff

16:31it feels pretty good uh there's a condensed sine wave coming up here as well we'll see how it handles the

16:37the divots here yeah nice so it's falling into each one of those which means it's soft enough to

16:44to sort of not not linger but not hard enough that it falls into every single bit there

16:52yeah drive modes you've got three acceleration modes comfort standard and sport and regen modes

16:58normal and high assisted steering mode so i'm going to put it into sport let's go for a a lap of our

17:05ride and handling track to see what this feels like we do this test back to back with all the cars that

17:11we drive just to see how they perform when you wind the wicker so immediately there i can feel that

17:15it has come out of uh it has come out of regen

17:25so it does that basically when it senses that the rear wheels don't have proper contact with the road

17:31and if you're hitting bumps coming into a braking area you're getting consistent brake feel which i don't

17:37love uh so that's something they could definitely work on but in terms of just the way that it sort

17:43of sits when you're driving it's actually pretty good brakes feel good see what it's like on this

17:51faster section here so it keeps engaging the emergency recording state so if you go for a spirited drive it

18:00can't really tell the difference so there might be a setting for that

18:07actually feels pretty good and it's got that sort of lively rear rear wheel drive feel to it

18:12the steering actually feels nicely resolved as well give it a punch on the back straight here

18:17okay so there it is there so i'm picking up speed really nicely so

18:20yeah pretty sort of uh pretty impressed with that i just think that the the regen really needs some work

18:27like right now it's come out of its regen mode because we hit a bump and it's just taken forever

18:31to come back into it and the end result is that you get varying brake pedal pressure and it causes

18:36the driver to then push the brake harder because you're not slowing down as much then when it comes

18:40back into regen you're sort of diving forward so um look this is kind of a an edge case here in terms

18:48of the testing that we're doing but if you do want to go for a spirited drive in your you know

18:51rear wheel drive electric car um there's some of the hurdles you're gonna have to overcome and that's

18:55stuff they can fix with the software update so given this has over the air update capability

19:00hopefully it's something they address in the future

19:05now what about your visibility so i can see quite clearly down the front there wing mirrors are pretty

19:10decently sized blind spot monitor built into those very difficult to see out out of the rear it's a

19:15very narrow envelope and you've got sort of headrests in the way i just think they could have done

19:20a slightly better job or perhaps integrated a digital rear view mirror to to help with vision

19:25out of the rear so i can imagine if you had someone in that center seat it'd be actually

19:30very hard to see out the back window now let's talk about the i guess one pedal driving something

19:36that i can't really get my head around because sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't really

19:41work i'm just testing it out now to see what it does here okay this is coming to a stop so it's

19:46working sort of as it's intended to so i don't know a bit weird not sure what was going on maybe it

19:52was just a bit of a funny thing earlier but yeah in terms of the one pedal driving it feels

19:55just like any other electric car

20:00now let's talk about the semi-autonomous driving tech let's see how well it works so we test on our

20:07bowl here at 70 k's an hour and we use the three outer lanes to see how willing it is to hold itself

20:12in the lane but this also has an automatic lane change feature that works between 70 and i think it's

20:16140 so i'll just bump it up to like 71 so it's definitely active so you activate it by uh sort of

20:23double tapping your drive selector down so you can see there that it's active it's got the blue

20:27steering wheel and it's holding us in our lane here it's doing a good job there in that lane i'm

20:32going to hit the indicator once so that it changes lanes okay it doesn't look like it's going to do

20:38it here because we're not on a highway it says here this function operates on highways i did test

20:42this earlier this morning it actually worked quite well so now i'll just manually change lanes

20:49okay now we'll activate our feature again okay so again doing a good job of holding us there quite

20:58central in the lane and then we'll jump over to the outermost lane now this is where it's likely to

21:05struggle the most but we'll see how it works no it's not holding us there so it's not willing to

21:13provide enough steering torque to hold it within that lane so yeah a little bit disappointing we

21:19tested the yaris cross here the other day and it worked quite well there in the outer lane so i think

21:22it just needs a bit more confidence in terms of its steering hold okay time to do some acceleration

21:27testing so i mentioned before zika claimed zero to 100 time of under six seconds we're going to go

21:32through to 120 so we can see what our 80 to 120 overtaking time is like as well so it's in sport

21:38mode i'm going to switch uh esc off as well just to make sure we can get off the line nice and easily

21:45so here we go very nice quite strong off the line there so it keeps keeps pulling strongly as well

21:55through 100 k's an hour and there's 120 nice it actually felt felt really nice and strong it just

22:01sort of kept kept accelerating so that is good now again emergency recording state um okay so zero to

22:10100 5.87 seconds nice and 80 to 120 3.94 seconds that's pretty good as well so um quite sort of happy with

22:18those numbers okay let's do a stop from 100 we will see what the brake and tire package is like

22:27all righty there is 100 here we go

22:33again emergency recording state

22:39so 100 to 0 nice 2.79 seconds 37.23 meters so that's really good any sort of distance between 35 and 40

22:47meters is uh it's pretty impressive so very happy with that now how quick does it go in reverse let's

22:54find out

22:58all right 29 30 31 kilometers an hour

23:05okay so zika x what do we reckon um i'll explain the skip down in just a second um look i think that

23:10it's probably a little bit too expensive especially here in the base model i just think that the model y

23:15represents uh better value for money getting a bigger car more features and better tech so i

23:21think that from a value proposition i just don't see it here in the entry level gets better when you

23:25get to the all-wheel drive and getting a bit more performance for i guess not that much extra money but

23:30here probably not so much now why is the skid pan wet um well i thought it was quite sort of decent in

23:36terms of the handling and given its rear-wheel drive i thought let's switch stability control off and see

23:40what it does and look it's actually not too bad you can actually have fun with it which you can't do

23:43in a model y so if you do want a sporty option i guess this gives you that alternative lets you have

23:48that sort of rear-wheel drive feel with a bit of freedom on things like traction controls which you

23:52just don't have in a lot of other cars in this segment um but yeah just in terms of value i just

23:56think they've missed the trick a little bit there so let me know in the comments section below what do

24:00you reckon would you buy this or would you go for the all-wheel drive model or are you going to get

24:04something else entirely different so let me know in the comments section below if you did enjoy this

24:07video please make sure you like it you share it with your mates if you haven't done so already

24:11subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon but until next time take it easy

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