Changan Deepal S05: what surprised, delighted and disappointed me

Yet another electric SUV from yet another new (at least to UK roads) Chinese car brand. Can Changan’s mid-sized electric SUV stand out in what is a hugely crowded market?

If you caught my article last month on the realities of taking an electric car abroad, you might have noticed I was driving something of an unfamiliar car: a Changan Deepal S05. 

We haven’t yet lab tested the Deepal S05, so what follows are my first impressions of the car, having driven it more than 1,500 miles across Europe (see my article on taking an EV into the EU for more on that).

Read on to find out what I thought of the car, including the one feature I absolutely fell in love with and the one I'd really like Changan to remove.

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Changan Deepal S05: key information

While relatively unknown in the UK, Changan is one of China’s biggest car manufacturers. It's Deepal S05 is an electric SUV that launched in the UK earlier this year.

The only other car Changan currently sells over here is the slightly larger S07 (read Dino Buratti’s first-drive review of the Changan Deepal S07), but it plans to launch a plug-in hybrid version of the S05 later this year.

Changan has taken an uncomplicated approach to options. There’s an all-wheel drive (AWD) version that delivers more power (429hp), but with a £2,000 premium and a drop in range (278 miles), you’ve really got to want that extra oomph.

The only other option is the panoramic (but static) sunroof at an extra £1,000.

The rest of the kit – and it’s extensive – comes as standard. This includes heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a head-up display, a 360-degree camera, wireless phone charging, Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and more. 

The lack of options certainly streamlines the buying process, but a one-size-fits-all approach means you can’t save money by dropping features you don’t really want or need. 

As with many Chinese brands, Changan goes big on the warranty, offering seven years (or 100,000 miles) of cover. The Deepal S05 also earned the full five stars in its Euro NCAP crash test last year.

First impressions

Stepping into the minimalist cabin, it’s hard not to think Changan took significant design inspiration from Tesla. There’s no driver display, very few physical buttons and a large 15.4-inch touchscreen sitting in the centre.

The steering wheel has two four-way direction pads that double as buttons and four shortcut buttons (two of which you can reassign from a set list of tasks), but almost everything else is housed in the giant touchscreen.

On the plus side, the screen is bright, easy to read and responds well. And while there are seemingly endless menus to navigate, they’re logically laid out, and I soon got to grips with it. The screen can also swivel to face the passenger, driver or in the centre position.

However, some commonly used functions (such as adjusting the wing mirror angles and regen braking levels) are buried within sub-menus. You can add shortcuts to a quick-access menu (accessed by swiping down from the top), but it's still fiddly, and I’d much prefer a few more physical buttons and controls.

The head-up display gets a bit cluttered when set to show all information (range, speed limit, directions and more), but you can strip it back to show only vital information such as your speed.

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Keeping the family happy

I was more than a little nervous about combining a test drive with a long driving holiday, so I was pleased to find the interior of the Deepal S05 a comfortable place to reside. With lots of soft fabrics throughout, it also has a premium feel.

The electronic front seats are easy to adjust and, although not the most powerful I've experienced, the cooling function was still a welcome addition. 

There were some initial complaints from passengers in the back, mainly about the seat angle (which doesn’t recline), but these soon subsided and were likely just an attempt to secure a spot up front. 

The front passenger seat also has a ‘zero-gravity’ setting. Needless to say, it’s not as exciting as it sounds; it basically involves a motorised leg rest that rises up as the chair reclines, leaving you lying almost flat.

I had visions of using it to have a nap during charging sessions, but the reality is lying on a car chair – even a zero-gravity one – really isn’t that comfortable. However, front-seat passengers did enjoy having the leg rest partly risen on long journeys.

In terms of interior noise, the Deepal S05 is quiet when driving around town, but that soon changes when you hit the open road, with both wind and road noise noticeable. It’s nothing compared with a petrol or diesel-powered car and soon drowned out by the impressive sound system, but still noisier than most other EVs I’ve driven.

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Storage heaven

Try as we might, my family can't travel light. I usually combat this by slapping a roofbox on my car when going abroad, but that wasn’t an option for this trip. 

Indeed, when I first opened the boot (a claimed 492 litres), I was concerned it wouldn’t cope with the sheer volume of luggage I was about to throw at it. After a bit of Tetris-style loading, I managed to squeeze in most, but not all, items. 

Thankfully, the Deepal S05 has an ace card up its sleeve: an absolutely cavernous front storage area under the bonnet – referred to as a 'frunk' (front trunk) in the US, so we should probably call it a 'froot' this side of the pond.

Such storage spaces aren’t unusual with EVs, but at 159 litres, this is the biggest one I’ve had the pleasure of using.

With a drain hole and rugged design, it’s clearly meant for mucky shoes and the like, but for me it served as the perfect place to store washbags, water bottles and all manner of other gubbins.

It was an absolute godsend on our trip, and rival EV manufacturers should follow suit. My only complaint is that the bonnet needs a Herculean shove for it to fully close, but it’s a small price to pay.

Elsewhere, you get the usual pockets in the doors, plus a large, deep, cooled storage area under the central armrest.

There’s also storage space between the front footwells, but you need to be careful what you put in it; with small side lips, it’s easy for objects to roll out and potentially interfere with the pedals. It's fine for stowing something like a small bag, though.

Tech triumph?

I’ve got mixed feelings about the Deepal S05’s tech features.

Overall, I was impressed, especially with the driver assistance features. The adaptive cruise control was impeccably smooth, with none of the sudden braking or acceleration I've experienced in other cars. And although I prefer not to use steering assist, when I did turn it on, it kept the car in lane impressively well.

The many viewing angles afforded by the 360-degree camera also made parking and navigating narrow roads a breeze.

But it wasn’t all good. As with many cars, the speed-limit recognition was unreliable, often misreading or completely ignoring speed limit signs. And while I’d hoped the voice assistant would let me limit touchscreen use, my hopes were dashed when it failed to recognise even simple commands such as ‘close the sunroof’.

There are also some really odd additions, such as the external speaker that has pre-recorded voice snippets, including one to admonish other drivers for using their phone (as bonkers and as pointless as it sounds).

Then there's the odd circular light next on the outside of the passenger side rear door (shown below) that seemed to change intensity and colour as if it wanted to tell me something, but I never discovered exactly what.

More seriously, though, I discovered that the Deepal S05 is all too happy to let you play video on the main screen, even when the car is in motion.

The only safeguard against this is a warning, which you can easily override by tapping 'Play anyway' (see below).

A Changan representative told me this feature is disabled by default and requires a deliberate user action to activate it, but I can't help feeling the option shouldn't be there at all.

But what’s it like to drive?

This is where the Deepal S05 will divide opinion.

While it delivers the punchy (and instant) acceleration offered by most EVs, this isn’t a car to get your pulse racing – then again, if you’re after driving thrills, a family-oriented electric SUV probably won't be high on your shopping list.

What it does do is offer a comfortable, almost effortless drive, which for this family holiday is just what we wanted. That said, while the ultra-soft suspension absorbs road imperfections well, going over speed bumps and potholes can make the car rock side to side, particularly at slow speeds.

It’s not that bad and I got used to it after a few days, but combined with the light, synthetic-feeling steering, it creates a disconnected driving experience and makes it hard to truly gauge road conditions.

Range and charging

As with all EVs, what you get in terms of range depends on various factors, not least how fast you’re driving. On average, I got roughly 3.5 miles/kWh, but on faster roads this dropped to around 2.5 miles/kWh.

In fact, that was a real problem, with the car significantly overestimating the remaining range during an autoroute-heavy day in France. 

The car has a maximum official charge rate of 200kW, but I found it topped out at 169kW (even with rapid chargers capable of much more), before steadily dropping during the charge session.

On average, it took me around 20-25 minutes to get from 20-80%, which isn't too shabby.

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Final thoughts

As always, we’ll reserve our final judgement until we get the car lab tested, but based on my initial drive, the Deepal S05 delivers in several key areas, particularly for comfort and practicality.

With oodles of space for passengers and cargo, it's ideally suited to busy family life, and it served me incredibly well on my extended European road trip. It’s also loaded with kit, has a premium feel, and the five-star Euro NCAP rating is reassuring.

And while its driving dynamics certainly won’t suit all tastes, neither me nor my passengers had many complaints during the 1,500+ miles we covered in it. That said, I would heartily recommend a test drive if you’re thinking of buying to make sure you're happy with how it handles.

Changan also has some rough edges to address, especially with voice control and speed-limit recognition. And I'd like to see Changan completely disable video playback while the car's in motion.

The Deepal S05 also faces stiff competition, so be sure to check out the alternatives that we've lab-tested in our guide to the best electric SUVs.