Zeekr is a very new company in the automotive sphere. The Chinese electric car maker was only founded in 2021, making it quite a good bit younger than its next closest all-new electric car manufacturer entrant.

But whilst Zeekr itself is a brand-new marque, they’ve already garnered quite a bit of experience building cars. Not as Zeekr obviously, but as part of the Geely group, a conglomerate that also owns a wide array of foreign brands like Volvo, Polestar, Lotus and Proton.

Being part of a larger automotive group allows R&D costs to be shared throughout all of its sub-brands, and drawing on years of collective wisdom from its stablemates have allowed the Zeekr engineers to steer clear from the pitfalls of those with grand ambitions but without the experience to show for it.

This bit of context is crucial, as it helps to explain why the Zeekr X feels as polished and as cohesive as it does despite the company only being three years old.

Monolithic Styling

With so many new electric car manufacturers eyeing for market share, it can be tricky to stand out from the crowd. EVs built on converted ICE cars look identical to their combustion counterparts, with designs that we have obviously grown accustomed to over the past several decades. Dedicated EVs usually also have a specific look, as manufacturers use smooth curves and flowing lines in the pursuit of efficiency.

The Zeekr X, which utilises a ground-up EV platform, doesn’t subscribe to either design ideology. Instead, there’s plenty of influences from architecture in its overall styling (something that makes the Interior Designer in me very happy). There’s an almost monolithic treatment to most of its lines, panels and surfacing, with elements also obviously borrowed from Brutalist architecture.

And yet there’s just enough minimalistic influence for the car to look refreshingly modern. It is truly a distinctive looking car, and one that most definitely stands out from the crowd. There are some subtle design differences between the two Zeekr X variants in Singapore, with the as-tested Flagship having a circular screen on the B-pillar, different alloy wheels and a blacked out ‘X’ badge on the boot lid.

Still, regardless of the variant you go for, the Zeekr X is a breath of car design fresh air. No retro styling or aggressive, sporty elements for the sake of it. It exercises a surprising amount of overall restraint, which helps to create a sense of luxury and class.

This Theme Continues Inside

The sharp lines carry into the cabin. This time though, they’ve clearly drawn inspiration from the world of private yachts in the way that the dashboard has been designed. An intricate lightbar runs the width of the dashboard, and can be configured to show any colour or hue you want.

Physical switchgear is kept to a minimum, with all controls accessible via hotkey shortcuts on its 14.6-inch infotainment screen. The animations here are snazzy, responsive and refreshingly modern, with Zeekr doing something perfectly that many other Chinese makers struggle with – creating a truly cohesive UI across all of the displays and the two screens in the cockpit.

The roofline is also decently high in this car, and when coupled with the large windows, creates a true sense of space in the cabin. Again borrowing from the world of luxury houses, luxury is commonly defined by space and light, two elements that are we are in no short supply of.

Material quality is fantastic through the cabin, with hard plastics only used to make the lower parts of the door cards. AWD models also come equipped with a *proper* fridge, which utilises a special “Parking Comfort” mode to keep it cool when the vehicle is stationary. It can chill at below freezing point, whilst only using 1% of battery per hour when the X is parked.

Calming to Drive

You’d expect a car built on Geely’s Sustainable Experience Architecture to be as rapid and fun-to-drive as its #1 Brabus cousin. And yet the X is the polar opposite of its mad German cousin. This also goes to show that this SEA platform isn’t just a one trick pony, but one that is incredibly versatile.

It has the same 422 bhp and 543 Nm of torque as the #1 Brabus, with both cars also using the same 66 kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt battery. In X guise, this powertrain is good for an on-paper range of 420 kilometres, which works out to be about 400 kilometres in the real world.

But unlike the smart, the Zeekr doesn’t egg you on to drive in a spirited fashion. The cabin is well insulated and just oozes luxury, with no Alcantara or red trim panels anywhere to be seen. Which must have been part of the brief of the X, as it all its controls just feel smoother and easier to use than any of its SEA siblings.

The suspension has also been tuned with an obvious slant for comfort. It is able to iron out almost anything our roads threw at it over my test drive, though this does come at the slight expense of noticeable body roll. It still is sophisticated enough to handle its mass and power, just don’t expect it to corner as quickly or as aggressively as some of its non-Geely EV rivals.

Comfort Prioritised

And that’s a trait that we should all welcome. Many EV makers are obsessed with adding power and stiffness to their offerings, hiding their products’ sheer mass under a veneer of brutal torque. Which makes the X such a refreshing change of pace.

You still get the sense that it has a ton of power, but it has just been designed to work it better. The X is a very calming car to drive, and that is no doubt helped by a strategy that is obviously comfort-first. It is proof then, that you don’t need savage power delivery and cornering prowess to build a car that’d appeal to the masses – there’s something that feels just right about a car that does luxury and comfort well!

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