GAC Aion UT

Overview

HAVING launched locally last year, GAC has expanded its Australian stable with the arrival of the Aion UT battery electric hatchback.

Two variants of this Chinese-built, Italian-designed hatchback are available in Australia: the entry-grade Premium model – priced at $31,990 before on-road costs – and the range-topping Luxury model, wearing a price tag of $35,990 + ORCs.

GAC has some high expectations for the Aion UT, targeting a top 3 sales position within its segment according to its Australian CEO Kevin Shu.

In order to achieve this sales target, the Aion UT will have to do battle in the Australian market against the likes of the BYD Dolphin ($29,990 - $36,990 + ORCs), MG4 ($37,990 - $55,990 drive away) and its MG4 Urban stablemate (from $31,990 drive away), GWM Ora ($35,990 - $38,990 drive away), and the Geely EX2 (yet to be priced for Australia).

Its powertrain consists of a front-mounted, 150kW and 210Nm electric motor, good for a 0-100km/h run of 7.3 seconds. Sourcing power from a 60kWh LFP battery, GAC quotes a combined WLTP driving range of 430km and an energy consumption figure of 16.4kWh per 100km.

Its battery supports 11kW AC charging and 87kW DC fast charging, the latter good for a 30 to 80 per cent charge time of 24 minutes. Both Aion UT variants also support vehicle-to-load functionality.

Standard exterior features on the Aion UT Premium model include: 17-inch alloy wheels, a manual tailgate, manually folding side mirrors, auto-sensing frameless front wipers, and LED headlights and tail-lights.

Inside you’ll find a 14.6-inch infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, an 8.88-inch digital instrument cluster, a six-speaker sound system, PVC upholstery, heated front seats, a six-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat, a four-way power adjustable passengers seat, a USB-A and USB-C port in the front, a rear centre folding armrest, and rear air vents.

Standard safety and driver assistance equipment includes adaptive cruise control, integrated cruise assist, lane departure warning, lane keep assist, emergency lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition, rear cross traffic alert, blind spot detection, a 360-degree camera, front and rear parking sensors, driver and occupant monitoring systems, and seven airbags. The Aion UT is yet to receive a star rating from ANCAP.

Over the entry-level model, the Luxury variant adds a power tailgate, power-folding side mirrors, a ventilated driver’s seat, an auto anti-glare interior rearview mirror, wireless phone charging, a rear USB-A port, and a panoramic sunroof with an electric sunshade.

When it comes to boot space, GAC quotes 321 litres with the rear seat up and 689 litres with the rear seats down.

The Aion UT comes with an eight-year unlimited kilometre warranty, an eight-year/200,000km battery warranty and – provided it is serviced at a GAC dealership – five years of roadside assist.

Service intervals for the Aion UT come every 12 months or 15,000km, with prices for each service ranging between $199 and $830.

Driving Impressions

The Aion UT certainly has its merits, but there’s also evident room for improvement.

We like its sleek, modern, yet cute styling. If you’re a fan of the early Daewoo Matiz or Renault Twingo, the Aion UT seems to take their design philosophies to their modern conclusion.

Step inside and you're met with a fairly pleasant front row. The PVC upholstery and faux metal components feel surprisingly high quality. The seats are also reasonably well-supported and quite comfortable.

There are some useful storage options too, including a fairly deep centre console storage compartment, two cupholders, a cleared out space between the centre console and the dashboard, as well as a storage hatch in the dashboard itself.

Forward visibility is pretty good, although we didn’t find the A-pillar side windows – evidently added to improve visibility beyond the wing mirrors – all that useful.

However, the Aion UT is undoubtedly guilty of touchscreen overreliance. Save for the steering wheel buttons and column-mounted stalks, there are very few physical controls in the cabin. Air conditioning functions, for instance, are handled entirely through the touch screen, and making adjustments on the move can get pretty fiddly.

The touchscreen itself is usable, but again, there’s room for improvement. Many functions are buried within several, lengthy sub-menus, there are selectable options that don’t really make sense, and some features are located in unexpected places.

For example, the regen’ settings – which are found a few menus deep in the system – are called ‘Close’, ‘Weak’ and ‘Medium’ as opposed to ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, and ‘High’.

When it comes to back seat space, knee room is great but there isn’t much in the way of headroom.

Move around to the boot and you’ll find an adjustable boot floor, a useful and practical addition. When it comes to outright storage, the Aion UT’s 321 litres with the rear seats up is solid but not class-leading.

The Aion UT is fairly adept at urban driving. Its soft suspension tune works well on the rough Sydney roads on which it was tested. Its 360-degree camera – which comes as standard – along with a light steering tune makes tight manoeuvring easier too.

While 150kW and 210Nm are hardly earth shattering output figures and there’s sometimes a slight lag between planting your foot and having its performance delivered to you, the Aion UT feels zippy and quick.

During our two stints testing the Aion UT, the trip computer returned energy consumption figures of 14.2kWh per 100km and 13.7 kWh per 100km, figures that are even better than GAC’s claim.

Get up to motorway speeds and while there’s a little wind noise, tyre noise stays in-check.

However, it’s likely on the motorway where you’ll start to experience the Aion UT’s major shortcomings.

Activating the adaptive cruise control without the owners manual can be a bit of a guessing game.

The controls use the same stalk as the gear selector and after several failed attempts to activate the system, we figured out it requires a long press down on the stalk to make it work.

Do some more sleuthing and you might eventually figure out that the right-hand-side scroll wheel on the two-spoke steering wheel is used to adjust its speed.

This usability gripe is arguably a first-world problem, but why make something more complicated than it needs to be?

The adaptive cruise control itself doesn’t feel particularly well-tuned either. It’s slow to accelerate and hangs too far back from other traffic.

Its integration with lane centring and lane keeping is also inconsistent. Sometimes it will work as expected while other times it will wait until the last minute to intervene and usually overcorrect as a result.

Adaptive cruise control isn’t the Aion UT’s only poorly tuned safety system. The driver monitoring system will often unjustly pull you up for being fatigued and the seatbelt reminder notification sometimes activates despite all occupants seatbelts being done up and no objects being placed on any of the seats.

When it comes to cornering performance, the Aion UT is serviceable but not particularly inspiring. The body control feels a little floppy, the steering feels disconnected and slushy, and the suspension – which proved suitable for urban driving – is the slightest step away from being too soft. The standard tyres also don’t feel particularly confidence inspiring either.

Overall, the GAC Aion UT has its merits, but isn’t the complete package just yet.

It’s stylish, well-priced, has pleasant interior materials, is decently well equipped, and has a strong warranty package.

However, it suffers from poorly-tuned ADAS features and lacklustre driving dynamics as well as a few usability gripes.

The good news is that our interactions with GAC at the Aion UT’s local launch suggests the brand is open to feedback from both Australian reviewers and consumers. If that is the case and feedback is taken onboard, the Aion UT could be a car that improves over time.

More local testing, ADAS refinements, and responding to Australian feedback will likely fix many of the Aion UT’s issues. Hopefully, we will one day look back at its first model year on Aussie shores and marvel at just how far it’s come.