Aion V review – first UK drive

Make and model: Aion V Premium
Description: Electric mid-sized SUV
Price range: £36,450 to £37,900

Summary: The Aion V is a good value first offering which outscores rivals on the road. Putting right some minor irritations would take it to the top of its class.

For a broader ownership picture, see our Aion V Expert Rating, which combines media reviews, safety data, reliability, running costs and warranty cover.

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The Aion V (pronounced ‘Vee’ and not ‘Five’) is the first offering from yet another Chinese automotive brand bidding to take a slice of the UK car market, and one that claims not being first on the roads is an advantage.

As our feature on the brand reveals, Aion is a major player both in car production generally and making electric vehicles (EVs). Its parent company, the fifth largest automotive group in China, builds cars like the Jazz for Honda to export to European buyers, while only Tesla and BYD sell more EVs globally than Aion.

The company claims to have learned much by observing then following others into the UK market, being able to quiz EV users on what they like and don’t like about their cars and then shape their offering accordingly. The result is the Aion V, a mid-sized electric SUV, the first of what should be seven different Aion models on sale by the end of 2027.

So, did the right messages reach the Aion design team?

Price and equipment

Aion is heavily promoting the simplicity of its model offering – just one powertrain choice and two trim levels, with more buyers expected to be attracted by the £38K Premium version over the £36.5K base model.

The only potential additional costs are colours – standard finishes are a pearlescent white or ‘Wilderness Sand Metallic’ while an extra £675 pays for one of three other metallic paint options or an extra ‘Holographic Silver’ shade only available for the Premium. You can also specify ‘French Cream’ or ‘Bright Tan’ interiors for the Premium at a cost of £195.

Standard equipment on every car includes 19-inch alloy wheels, front and rear parking cameras and a surround-view camera, an electric tailgate, a wireless phone charging pad with a cooling fan, a panoramic sunroof and a nine-speaker 360-watt audio system.

The Premium gains full faux-leather upholstery, eight-way adjustable front seats with a massage function offering five modes and three levels of intensity, heating on the steering wheel and all seats (the fronts also vented and the rears able to recline), plus a couple of neat touches.

A quality fold-up table on the back of the front passenger seat is designed to suit working on a laptop (Aion claims it’s modelled on a Bentley item), and between the front seats is a ‘cool hot box’ of almost seven litres, which can freeze items to -14ºC or heat them to 50ºC.  

The Aion V was tested by Euro NCAP in September 2025 and clocked up a top-level five-star rating, boasting all of the electronic driver assistance features that are now the norm. A definite further plus is the warranty, all models getting Aion’s ‘Great 8’ promise which alongside eight years or 100,000 miles of warranty cover provides servicing, MoTs and roadside assistance over the same period, the last through the AA. All of this transfers fully to future owners, which should help resale values and monthly finance payments for new car customers.

Inside the car

On getting in the Aion, there is an immediate feeling of quality. The quilted leatherette trim used throughout the cabin has an upmarket soft padded touch to it, and is well integrated into such areas as the door lining. Scratchy plastics are conspicuous by their absence.

The driver’s layout is to the today norm, a nine-inch digital screen ahead of the steering wheel with the essential information, and a large central touchscreen, in this case 15 inches, above a centre console with its wireless phone charger. 

Again typical is the fact that almost everything has to be executed through a touchscreen that boasts an initially confusing amount of menus. The most regularly required functions, such as climate control, are usefully grouped along the base of the screen, but there are very few physical buttons, the steering wheel notably possessing only a pair of dials which are not that intuitive to use.

There’s plenty of room in both front and back, while the boot offers 458 litres of space with all seats up, extending to 1,638 litres with the rears folded. A neat touch is an adjustable boot floor, which can be placed higher to store larger items out of sight. There is no ‘frunk’ – one of several enhancements Aion says it is considering for later versions of the car – but chromed roof rails are standard, with a 75kg carrying capacity.

Driving range and charging

The Aion V offers just one powertrain, a 150kW electric motor (equivalent to 204hp), driving the front wheels and powered by a 75kWh battery pack. The official driving range is quoted at 317 miles, which is better than most mid-sized electric SUVs.

The maximum public charging speed is 180kW, which will take 25 minutes to go from 10 to 80% recharged at a suitably powerful charging point. On an 11kW home wallbox, a full charge takes around 8.5 hours (most homes can only offer 7kW, which means it will be slower), and Aion offers an app allowing remote scheduling, starting and stopping of charging without going to the car.

A heat pump comes as standard, aiding battery range in colder weather by keeping the pack at the most efficient operating temperature and heating the cabin, Aion’s unit said to be only half the weight of a typical pump.

On the road

If those questions to EV users produced comments of the innocuous progress their cars make, then they have been largely answered. The Aion V’s on-the-road performance is definitely a positive, a sensible amount of power allied to precise steering with proper feedback – in recent times, something this reviewer has thought EVs just couldn’t do. It’s a bit too soft in the suspension department, to a degree floating along, but overall this is the best EV we’ve driven for some time.

The irritations are small; this is yet another car that suffers from ‘touchscreen-itis’ – it’s good to see that you can physically change the direction of the heating vents, but moving the mirrors, for example, requires diving into those many screen menus. As does cancelling the plethora of driver warnings, though thankfully these are less intrusive than on some recent releases.

Brake regeneration is selected through the touchscreen with no steering wheel paddles or buttons – the stated three levels are actually two (Aion claims the third as ‘off’) and even the ‘high’ option is not particularly noticeable. Having said that, the Eco driving mode does feel as if the system is constantly fighting back against acceleration, and it is not as pleasant to drive with as those on other EVs.

All electric cars these days are required to announce their presence at slow speeds, to avoid pedestrians not hearing one approach and stepping into its path. Aion’s choice of sound, a low crackling sound as if driving slowly over crisps, is a little left-field and will likely generate Marmite reactions. 

Verdict

There is a lot to like about the Aion V. For a competitive price you get all of the equipment alongside the usual mainly touchscreen-focused irritations of its mostly Chinese rivals, but you also get an on-the-road performance that is superior to those rivals.   

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