Introduction to the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8
Following on from impressive market performance by its Jaecoo and Omoda marques in certain European territories, Chinese manufacturer Chery is planning to bring some of its own-brand vehicles to this part of the world.
The company's presence in Ireland isn't confirmed as yet, but if it does arrive here then the opening salvo from Chery will be the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 twins. The former is a five-seat SUV, while the latter that we're testing here is a seven-seat machine - think of them as analogous to the Nissans Qashqai and X-Trail, and you get the idea.
We went over to the UK to try the big Tiggo 8 as a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) in its top specification.
Pros & cons of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV
Pros: Plenty of equipment, smart and spacious interior, smooth enough to drive, long electric range
Cons: Chassis lacks any sparkle, generic styling
Exterior & design of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV
• Safe, unadventurous styling
• Derivative of other manufacturers' work
• 19-inch wheels as standard
In essence, the Tiggo 8 is a stretched version of the smaller Chery Tiggo 7, but it's not quite as simple as that. There are subtle differences between the two when it comes to LED signatures in the front illumination clusters, while their front grilles and air intakes don't quite match either.
Chery's designers further gave the Tiggo 8 a less distinctive D-pillar and lower-window-line treatment (the area aft of the back doors), so the overall effect is that the larger SUV from Chery is even more anonymous and generic in the styling stakes than the Tiggo 7.
The Tiggo 8's dimensions are:
Length: 4,720mm
Width: 1,842mm
Height: 1,700mm
Wheelbase: 2,710mm
The 8 doesn't look bad, but you can see plenty of details in its shape which are either lifted from other manufacturers' aesthetic flourishes, or indeed which just remind you of another SUV entirely.
Interior, practicality, tech & comfort of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV
• Stylish look to dashboard and main fittings
• Interface not as intuitive as Tiggo 7's
• Decent space in row three
As it is a bigger, grander vehicle than the related Tiggo 7, the Chery Tiggo 8 has a more opulent interior with a unique design of centre console. The transmission tunnel is higher and more encompassing of the driver, while it has a 10.25-inch instrument cluster and mismatched 15.6-inch infotainment screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, rather than a pair of identical 12.3-inch displays.
This does make the Tiggo 8 slightly less easy and intuitive to use on the move, because it relies almost entirely on the touchscreen for the climate controls (there are two physical windscreen demister buttons underneath the driver's left elbow, which isn't exactly the natural place for them) and its driver's cluster isn't very helpful.
It has the same 'Last 50km' trip computer as we saw in the distantly related Omoda 9 and it was as hopeless at imparting useful info here as it was then. For instance, it shows two fuel-consumption figures, neither of which tallies with the other and neither of which looks anything like relevant or realistic to how you're driving the car. You can't seem to reset the trip either, which renders it ultimately useless.
However, material quality and comfort levels inside the Tiggo 8 are broadly very good, while there's lots of space too. The third row of seating is surprisingly capacious if you slide the middle chairs backwards and forwards a bit, which suggests you might get seven people onboard without too many complaints - although we'd still suggest younger (i.e., smaller) folk would be happier in the sixth and seventh pews than people who are more than six-foot tall.
There is, however, only so much that Chery can do with the space inside the Tiggo 8's shell and with every chair occupied, a measly 117 litres of boot capacity is on offer. This increases to 494 litres if you drop the easy-to-operate folding third row of seats, while something like 1,700 litres is provided in the two-seat configuration of the Tiggo 8's cabin.
Performance of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV
• Choice of petrol or PHEV drivetrains
• Latter is the better choice for Tiggo 8
• Very softly sprung in the suspension department
Like the Jaecoo 7 before it, and indeed the Tiggo 7 we've tested elsewhere on this site, the Tiggo 8 comes with either a turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine making 147hp and 275Nm, or the plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivetrain delivering healthier outputs of 204hp and 365Nm.
It's something of a vicious circle when we say the PHEV makes more sense in a vehicle of this size, because adding the part-electric running gear adds another 250kg and more onto the kerb weight of the Tiggo 8, meaning it's pretty much 1.8 tonnes in this specification. Despite this, though, a 0-100km/h time of 8.5 seconds speaks volumes about how the hybrid power is better for the overall performance of the Chery; a sub-150hp petrol engine is going to struggle badly with a fully laden Tiggo 8.
The PHEV is a smooth and quiet powertrain in the main, preferring to stay in electric running mode as much as it can and often only using the engine to charge the battery cells back up to maintain electric drive to the front wheels. Only if you really rev the Tiggo 8 out will you discern any significant gruffness from the four-cylinder engine, as most of the time the petrol unit remains next to silent.
This is thanks in part to the 'Silent Glass' which Chery installs in its cars, a form of double-glazing for all of the front sections of the SUV's glasshouse. This helps to make the Tiggo 8 very quiet at speed, although not perfect - you will pick up some tyre roar and a trace of suspension noise at all times in the Chery, although wind flowing around the cabin is mainly undetectable.
A laid-back character makes the Chery Tiggo 8 rather pleasant to drive if you're just ambling along in it, but when you start pushing up against the vehicle's dynamic capabilities then you can start to pick up on the flaws inherent in this Chinese family chariot.
Such as a somewhat mushy brake pedal with a little more travel than we'd like. Or the three-mode steering that has little light-and-shade between its settings, with none of them adding anything like the feel and weighting you'd expect of a vehicle in this class. And a strange propensity for the hybrid powertrain to keep accelerating for a split second or so even after you've lifted off the throttle. And suspension which feels even softer on this PHEV than the ICE models, which results in a markedly roly-poly driving experience that makes the Tiggo 8 feel like driving a Toyota Land Cruiser or Mitsubishi Shogun from about 12 years ago.
But it's not atrocious in any department. In essence, the Tiggo 8 is going to be perfectly fine for long-distance mile-munching and also crawling about urban areas at low speeds. It is the absolute epitome of safe, mundane, by-the-numbers, A-to-B motoring.
Running costs of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV
• Big battery gives excellent electric driving capability
• Low CO2 output will be tax-friendly in Ireland
• Combined 750km range touted for PHEV
Even though neither is confirmed for Ireland as yet, it's clear that the 'Super Hybrid' system in the Tiggo 8 PHEV will be of far more interest, over and above the petrol model, to consumers here due to its tax benefits.
A sub-50g/km CO2 figure will make it much less to tax each year than the 160g/km-plus of the other, while its large battery is said to give the Tiggo 8 an all-electric range of up to 90km. That's a lot for a PHEV, especially one which promises to be so affordable, and it's why it ought to be a no-brainer here.
Furthermore, top up the Chery's fuel tank and fully charge those power cells, and the company reckons that the vehicle will then go more than 750km in one hit on its combined fossil-fuel and electrical resources.
Irish pricing & rivals of the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8
• Not confirmed for Ireland yet
• Should be a cheap seven-seat PHEV
• Loads of equipment as standard
Chery hasn't confirmed if it is coming to Ireland yet so we can't say for certain how affordable the Tiggo 8 should be. However, going on the pricing structure the Chinese manufacturer employs in other countries and with the trend for new carmakers to typically offer a lot of kit and metal for not a lot of cash, we can guess that the well-equipped Tiggo 8 ought to be one of the cheapest plug-in hybrids on sale once Irish prices and presence are confirmed; and possibly even the cheapest seven-seat SUV with a plug-in powertrain.
Again, while we don't know what an Irish Chery range structure would look like, in other markets the company adopts a straightforward two-tier system with Aspire as the entry-level specification, stepping up to a grander Summit (as tested here) above.
Even a Tiggo 8 Aspire will come with 19-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, 'Silent Glass', an auto-dimming rear-view mirror, synthetic leather for all seats and the multifunction steering wheel, six-way power adjustment for the driver's seat, an eight-speaker Sony stereo, twin digital screens with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity, front and rear parking sensors with a surround-view camera, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and go, adaptive cruise control and a smattering of useful advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).
Progressing to Summit specification brings in side-mirror puddle lamps, a powered tailgate, heating elements for the first- and second-row seats, and the steering wheel too, plus ventilation for the front two seats and a massage function for the front-seat passenger, air-conditioning vents in the third row of the cabin (though only in the petrol model), illuminated door sills, sports pedals, a head-up display and an uprated 12-speaker Sony audio system.
Verdict - should you buy the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8 PHEV?
One of those 'moot point' conclusions here, because you can't buy the Chery Tiggo 8 here (yet), even if you wanted to. If it does come to Ireland, what you'd have available to you is one of the least expensive ways of getting into a plug-in-hybrid seven-seat SUV, and the Tiggo 8 is a machine that looks OK on the outside, has plenty of space and a suitably quality feeling inside, and which'll come with a shedload of kit for the money.
It's by no means faultless and has a variety of foibles, not least its utterly inert chassis tune, but as an effective way of Chery breaking the ice in markets where it's not a familiar name, the Tiggo 8 is a capable first showing replete with plenty of promise.
FAQs about the 2026 Chery Tiggo 8
Is the Chery Tiggo 8 just a stretched Tiggo 7?
It is, in essence, as it shares the same basic architecture and drivetrains as the 7. However, there are minute styling differences on the outside that mean they're not quite identical.
How much bigger is the Chery Tiggo 8 than the Tiggo 7?
It has an extra 220mm of metal overall, for a total length of 4,720mm, although only 40mm of that is in the wheelbase (the distance between the front and rear axles). Nevertheless, the Tiggo 8 is offered exclusively as a seven-seater as a result of its increased size.
How safe is the Chery Tiggo 8?
It has been tested by Euro NCAP and picked up a four-star rating. It scored 81 per cent for adult occupant, 77 per cent for child occupant, 80 per cent for vulnerable road users, and 78 per cent for its safety assist technology.
Want to know more about the Chery Tiggo 8?
Is there anything else you'd like to know about the Chery Tiggo 8? Or anything you feel we haven't covered here? Then just head over to our Ask Us Anything section and, well, ask us anything. We'll do our best to answer your questions.
