There’s a real changing tide in the auto industry right now, with the rise of quality, worthwhile Chinese-made alternatives to what’s on offer from established European, American, Korean and Japanese manufacturers. Brands previously considered ‘budget’ like Hyundai and Kia have decidedly moved up-market to support the lower volumes and greater expectations of the EV market, which has left room for Chinese automakers to undercut basically everyone.
But Chinese carmakers are now also looking to the premium market, and this is the space the Zeekr X is (pun intended) seeking to play in. It’s a car that can often keep up with much more expensive alternatives – or it would, if not for a variety of minor but painful issues that add up to undermine much of its appeal.
Zeekr is a Chinese automaker that shares DNA with its sister brands Smart, Volvo and Polestar. These companies are all owned by Geely, a Chinese auto giant. The underlying architecture the Zeekr X is built on – including its electrical and mechanical design – is shared with the Volvo EX30, which I reviewed back in late 2024, so on paper at least, the two should be very similar.
I was keen to see what a car from a different company could look like with the same platform, particularly one targeting a more accessible price point – and I’ve been left disappointed by a range of perplexing issues.
The Zeekr X ultimately suffers from many of the same problems as the EX30, but then piles even more of its own on top. Volvo’s entry-level EV is kneecapped by its minimalism, with unconventional sticks behind the steering wheel and an overwhelming amount of the driving experience reliant upon the infotainment system, capped off with a Tesla-inspired design that unwisely axes the instrument cluster.
While the Zeekr X does thankfully put the instrument cluster back (and indeed its cruise settings can mostly be tweaked via the steering wheel), the infotainment system is a bit of a chore to deal with. Intuitively laid out as its home screen may be, the poor contrasting of its native navigation app and submenus with unimpressive layouts make Zeekr’s take on the Volvo EX30 a bit of a miss.
And that’s without getting into the car’s physical issues. First and foremost, I found myself having to hard reset the car multiple times a day (involving pressing a combination of buttons rather than a simple off/on) just to get the infotainment system to operate smoothly – otherwise Android Auto would simply be too laggy to rely upon.
Adding to this, the car’s fob has an extremely worrying issue. The fob drains charge from its CR-2450 button battery alarmingly fast ambiently, with many users reporting flat fob batteries within months of purchase. A fob is meant to retain a battery for years on end, not have its battery replaced multiple times a year.
The sum of all these things combined left me feeling that the Zeekr X simply lacks the polish needed to be a reliable premium car. It’s disappointing to have to say this, because on paper the X is quite a competitive EV, boasting a decent battery range and DC recharging speed, along with acceleration that punches your head back, but there’s just too much to the experience that causes irritation.
Zeekr X specs
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Specs |
Zeekr X |
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Country of manufacture |
China |
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Price |
Zeekr X RWD: AU$49,900* Zeekr X AWD: AU$62,900 *The Zeekr X is unavailable in the US but is planned for future release in the UK, with a price and date to be announced |
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Range |
Zeekr X RWD: 446km (WLTP) / 277mi (WLTP) Zeekr X AWD: 400km (WLTP) / 248mi (WLTP) |
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Battery size |
66kWh |
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Power / torque |
Zeekr X RWD: 200kW / 343Nm Zeekr X AWD: 315kW / 543Nm |
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Maximum charging capacity |
7kW (RWD/AC) / 11kW (AWD/AC) / 150kW (DC) |
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Quoted recharge speed (DC) |
10% – 80% in less than 30 minutes |
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Drivetrain |
Zeekr X RWD: RWD Zeekr X AWD: AWD |
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Dimensions |
4,432 L x 2,025 W x 1,572 H |
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Boot capacity |
362L, 1182L (including rear seating) |
But first, the good stuff
We’ll have plenty of time to get into my problems with the Zeekr X in the next section, but I don’t believe the car is a total write-off. All of the problems I have with the X, are theoretically within Zeekr’s ability to change – there’s nothing systemic at fault here, and indeed the company is working off a good base platform.
Aesthetically, I really love what the X is doing. You can see how it relates to the Volvo EX30 just by pulling photos of both cars up; their designs share a prominent rear column and a hatchback-goes-SUV bodyshape, but the X also makes strides to prove itself unique.
A two-tone colour scheme is present across both the RWD and AWD trims of the Zeekr X, with headlights that I would say are entirely unique… if they didn’t share traits with cars from another Geely sibling, Lynk & Co. There’s also a satisfying subtlety across the car, without much branding save for ‘Zeekr’ written across the back and ‘X’ in the corner of the boot – a far cry from BYD’s excessive badging across all sides of its rival vehicles.
The X doesn’t sit far off the ground but is comfortable to get in and out of, and while offering a fairly decent boot capacity, it’s still quite a nimble car that’s capable of fitting into tight parking spots easily.
The interior is broadly satisfying too, and has some lovely touches that really make the car feel up-market, including an RGB lightbar across the dash. Similar to the Volvo EX30 and EX40, the rear windows are quite small, while a huge moonroof spans the entire seating area. The front seats are comfortable, with a decently sized infotainment screen and a capable instrument cluster situated on the steering column.
Every now and then the X reveals some unexpected tricks – though most tread close to gimmick territory. A good example is an LED screen on the outside of the driver’s side column that displays charging and battery information at a glance – and without needing to open the car. I like the idea, but considering most automakers get by communicating this information through a smartphone app, I can see why a column screen isn’t more common.
On the even more gimmicky side, the car can play sound effects. There’s an app installed from the get-go that can play noises from the car’s exterior speakers, including animal and sports car sounds, but also including phrases for other drivers and pedestrians – “thanks for giving way” and “make way please” for example, but if you so wish, you can use the car as a megaphone and simply talk out of the surrounding speakers.
This is a freaky thing to put into a car and it’s just begging for folks to be silly, but at the same time it’s kind of cool. The utility is poorly deployed – these sound effects can only be accessed via a full-screen app – but I see the vision, even if I personally would never use any of these sound effects unless I wanted to make my niece laugh.
On the road, the Zeekr X drives well, without much road noise and pleasant handling. The car feels well tuned for comfort and its cruise control is easy to deploy, though I would honestly recommend disabling the car’s driver monitoring system – it’s too annoying for its own good and will beep at you for the slightest things (such as if it detects eye motion away from the road in front of you, or if you go ever so slightly out of the middle of the road). Its recharging speed is respectable compared to similarly priced rivals, and is about what I’d expect for the price. A 2.4kW charger is also included with the car.
Acceleration is punchy and the steering wheel’s buttons are well laid out – the X displays just enough information on its instrument cluster and, on the whole, the cabin feels luxurious to sit in during a road trip.
So on the whole, there’s a lot of really good stuff to say about the Zeekr X and it’s a capable EV at first glance.
Unfortunately, after spending a week with it, my initial impressions started to sour.
It all adds up
I encountered a lot of issues with the Zeekr X. Having tested more than 30 electric vehicles over the years, I’m used to finding one or two odd things that might turn buyers off. Sometimes these are specific settings, other times related to the setup of the car. The Zeekr X’s problems aren’t deeply rooted, but they are both numerous and pervasive enough to add up.
I’ll start with the most troubling – the key fob that’s provided for locking/unlocking and boot controls. As I already mentioned above, a car fob powered by a CR2450 button cell battery should not be draining as fast as I observed when testing with a multimeter. By my estimate, the fresh button cell battery that I put into the fob would go flat within two to three months, considering the power it was consuming when hooked up to a multimeter.
This is, without mincing words, bad. It adds both additional costs and annoyance for something that’s simply a non-issue for other car brands. It also appears to be a widespread problem, if the Zeekr Australia owners group on Facebook is any indication. While a flat fob battery thankfully won’t immobilise the car, as the RFID chip will function without power (so you can place the fob against the steering column to unlock and against an RFID reader on the arm rest to power the car) it’s finicky and far from ideal, and may leave you tapping your fob against the car trim trying to get it to work. It also doesn’t help that the fob feels cheap and, given that it’s painted plastic, scratches easily.
We relayed the problems we had with the fob to Zeekr, and in a statement to TechRadar the company wrote: “We’re aware of isolated reports regarding key fob battery life in certain markets and are actively investigating this to determine if an adjustment is needed. As a tech-focused brand, we’re also working to promote and enhance the operation of our smartphone app as a key solution.”
The issues I had during my testing time unfortunately didn’t stop there. The infotainment system is also riddled with problems, the most prominent of which is the extreme slowness of some apps, in particular Android Auto, when starting the car. To get Android Auto to work well without laggyness, I’d need to reset the infotainment system (which is separate from restarting the car) and wait about two minutes for the process to fully complete. Again, this should be basic stuff in any car manufactured in 2025 – how is a supposedly luxury car, as it is advertised in Australia, having this kind of problem?
Zeekr also addressed this in a statement: “We acknowledge that some users have experienced occasional lag, particularly with Android Auto, and our engineering team is prioritizing stability improvements in upcoming OTA updates.”
And you might be thinking – if the car is luxurious, why even bother connecting your phone and using Android Auto? One compelling reason is that the integrated navigation app is so poorly contrasted that it’s hard to make out anything on its map, whether you’re set to dark or light mode. It’s borderline unusable on a bright day, compared to the clear layout of Apple and Google Maps.
The infotainment system is also pretty spotty in terms of quality. Its volume control is split across several sound categories (media, assistant, notifications and so on), and at times in my testing it wasn’t clear which one I was turning up or down. Annoyingly, even when warnings were muted, system beeps like the overspeed chime would bring down the volume of playing music, making for an extreme annoyance on the road. I even spotted grammar issues when the car prompted me about its loudspeaker setting. In its responses to our queries, Zeekr told TechRadar Australia that it’s working to refine responsiveness based on driver feedback.
There are a couple of other things that rubbed me the wrong way for a supposedly premium EV too. The internal door buttons would sometimes require a double press rather than a single press to register, for example, and the bonnet would often not completely catch and at times I’d find it unlocked after a drive. The HUD also includes directional arrows that are sometimes ambiguous and don’t clearly indicate the road you’re being navigated toward.
Most of these problems should be solvable with software updates (a software update was deployed during my testing period, but did not appear to resolve any of the listed issues when applied), and the rest by a revision to the Zeekr X on the production line, but at present I’m hesitant to recommend the car over its more-genuinely premium Volvo EX30 sibling, or even its closest competitor, the BYD Sealion 7. There are just too many small issues that add up to an overall annoying experience.
I really wanted to like the Zeekr X
I went into this review with very high hopes. In Australia, the Zeekr X balances a fairly competitive range, recharging speed and price with an attractive interior and aesthetic. My vision was that it would take the best of the Volvo EX30 and make it more accessible.
In reality, the Zeekr X is a disappointing product that demonstrates glossed-over cheapness more than committed luxury. One day, I hope the X is more impressive, but Zeekr needs to address a long list of little things before it’ll be ready to compete with better-established EV brands.
A new-to-market automaker having teething issues isn’t surprising, and indeed when BYD arrived in Australia (back in 2022) it had its work cut out addressing major customer complaints – and over the last three years, the increasingly popular Chinese manufacturer has made good progress. I’m quietly hopeful that Zeekr can make similar strides wherever it sells its cars, but it’s difficult to recommend right now, especially with the key fob battery issue that appears to be quite common.
If you’re shopping for something in the same niche as the Zeekr X, I’d recommend considering the Volvo EX30, BYD Sealion 7, Xpeng G7 or Volkswagen ID4.
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