Words: Raja Amer, Motoring Editor
There is a particular kind of humility that comes from admitting you were wrong. I felt it somewhere on the highway between Kuala Lumpur and Malacca, hands loose on the wheel, coffee in the cupholder, watching the kilometres disappear without a single complaint from the car carrying me. A few months ago, I had already put the Zeekr 7X through its paces off-road at Sepang Bay 13 Off-Road Ranch. That day showed me what the SUV could do. This weekend showed me what it feels like to actually live with one.
Design: European Pedigree, Chinese Execution
The 7X carries the fingerprints of Zeekr's Sweden-based design studio, led by design chief Stefan Sielaff, a name petrolheads will recognise as the former styling chief at Bentley and an ex-Audi designer. That pedigree shows. The proportions, inside and out, feel deliberate and balanced rather than styled by committee, a rare quality among fast-moving Chinese EV brands still finding their voice.
The standout party trick is the Stargate front light signature, an integrated smart light curtain built from over 1,800 individual LEDs. It photographs beautifully, but it is even more satisfying to watch in person, especially after dark, when the whole front end seems to breathe.
Step inside and the same restraint carries through. The seats, door panels, dashboard and steering wheel all speak the same design language, with nothing fighting for attention. It is confident without being loud, and there is something almost philosophical in that. The best luxury rarely announces itself.
Quality and Materials: The Bit That Actually Surprised Me
Here is my honest admission. The Zeekr 7X AWD Performance genuinely changed my perception of Chinese-made cars. NAPPA leather wraps the seats, but the premium feel does not stop there. It extends across nearly every touchpoint in the cabin, soft-touch materials everywhere, not just where your hands naturally land.
The audio is handled by a 21-speaker ZEEKR Sound Pro system, a serious piece of kit for this segment that elevates the cabin experience on long highway stretches, of which there were plenty between KL and Malacca. Somewhere past Seremban, with the right playlist on, I stopped thinking of it as a test drive and started thinking of it as a journey.
Technology: Familiar, With One Genuinely Useful Surprise
Tech-wise, the 7X shares a lot of DNA with the Zeekr 009 we tested previously, so much of the software and interface felt familiar. What did catch me off guard was the automatic doors on an SUV, not something I expected to find useful. After a weekend of hands full with luggage and coffee, it turned out to be a genuinely handy touch rather than a gimmick.
Honorary Mention: The Performance
This is where the 7X stops behaving like a family SUV and starts behaving like something else entirely. Zero to 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds is supercar-grade acceleration in an SUV body. An Akebono high-performance braking system with four-piston front calipers matches that pace, and an 800V high-voltage architecture enables ultra-fast DC charging up to 450kW.
More impressive than the numbers, though, was how composed the cabin stayed at speed, quiet and stable even pushing 180km/h, which says a lot about the NVH engineering and chassis tuning underneath all that performance.
A Few Small Preferences
No car is perfect, and a few ergonomic choices asked me to adjust my habits over the weekend. There are no physical climate control buttons, so temperature tweaks route through the central touchscreen. The glove box opens the same way. These are small trade-offs rather than flaws, the kind that come with any car built around a digital-first philosophy. The light-coloured interior is beautiful, and while it reflects visibly onto the windscreen in certain light and shows the occasional mark, it wipes clean with a wet tissue, so it never became a real hassle.
The Verdict
The Zeekr 7X AWD Performance is a genuinely compelling package. A design-focused SUV with the materials quality to back up its premium ambitions, supercar-baiting performance, and a couple of tech quirks that come down to preference rather than dealbreaker. After a full weekend behind the wheel, rather than just an off-road afternoon, it is clear this is not just a car with good spec-sheet numbers. It is one that holds up to daily, real-world scrutiny, the kind of test that matters most.
Cars, like people, reveal their true character not in a single dramatic moment but in the quiet accumulation of ordinary days. The 7X passed that test with something to spare. And for a segment where Chinese EVs are still fighting for credibility, that may be the most important verdict of all.
