The Temu Range Rover: Jaecoo and the Fast Fashion Car
Walking the side streets of London I kept seeing them out of the corner of my eye, a Range Rover Evoque, but not. The proportions were off, it was smaller, but the grill was bigger. The details were less precise, the materials looked cheap up close. It had an air of AI-slop, but rendered in the physical. If Temu sold a Rover dupe this would be it, the new Jaecoo 5.
And yet I kept seeing them everywhere I went. The big brother Jaecoo 7 sold almost 30k vehicles in the UK last year (more than Citroen or Seat). It’s currently the top selling car of 2026 according to the SMMT. What is Jaecoo tapping into here and what does it say about modern Britain?
Well, reading the recent reviews does not immediately bring clarity. The Jaecoo 5 received a 3/10 rating from Top Gear; 'dynamically it's completely hopeless.' This is currently the UK's best selling car, yet what leaves an impression is the ‘drunken gearbox’ and the ‘lifeless steering’. The folks at Business Car called the 7’s ride unsettled, the steering is devoid of feel and seats are uncomfortable. It would appear these are not great vehicles, on many dimensions they score adequate or below.
And yet the reviews are almost beside the point, because they are large and very affordable. The Jaecoo 5 starts at £24,555 and the 7 starts at £29,435. This is where the story takes shape, for under £30k you get the clamshell hood, the confident beltline, the imposing grill, the pop-out door handles. The automotive equivalent of fast fashion. You get the signal, you project the status, if only briefly. Frankly no one can feel cheap plastic and sloppy steering through Instagram. People are buying the look, not the actual item, they want new and shiny over known and proven. One can twist the logic even further, this is being smart with money, the Range Rover Evoque starts at £40k and climbs quickly with options. This is Chelsea prestige for an East London monthly payment. Much like the Temu t-shirt, when your PCP lease is up, you can just move on to the new shiny thing.
This is what Jaecoo understands. At this price point, driving feel becomes secondary to something else: visibility, presence, reassurance. Their customers care more about phone connectivity than the connection between human and machine. They sit in traffic, they want to feel good. Life is hard, surely we all deserve a little treat now and again? That is the Jaecoo, it’s designed to look good in the driveway and give the owner a little jolt of status, it’s a compression of aspiration.
This isn’t bad in and of itself, we are wired to appreciate new and shiny things. A clean house is more inviting than a dirty one. The issue I fear is much like the Temu t-shirt, these vehicles won’t hold up past the first ownership cycle. A Temu t-shirt frays within a season. The question is what frays first on a car that already felt cheap when new? What happens when they’re five, seven or ten years old? And if they already feel thin when new, it’s worth asking what, exactly, is being built here: a product, or just a moment of perception dressed up as one?
