Omoda 9 Virtue 2025 Review

The Omoda brand is positioned as Chery’s luxury offshoot so the price of the Omoda 9 at $61,990 plus on-road costs is not unexpected.

It’s a figure that puts the Omoda 9 in pretty clear air around other large SUV hybrid rivals, undercutting the Kia Sorento GT-Line AWD HEV by some $11,000, and the Mazda CX-80 AWD PE50e Touring by about $14,000. Those two rivals are, however, seven-seaters. The Omoda 9 is a five seater for now.

The Omoda 9 price point does not come at the cost of standard equipment, though. The Omoda 9 offers a head-up display, automatic parking, heated and ventilated synthetic leather seats front and back, a 14-speaker Sony stereo that includes speakers in the driver’s headrest, wired and wireless phone mirroring, panoramic glass roof, heated and folding powered mirrors, four USB ports and a 50W wireless charger and plenty more besides.

Outside, the Omoda 9 runs full-width LED signature bars front and rear, a powered tailgate and powered door handles. Running on 20-inch rims fitted with Michelin tyres, the adaptive suspension system is also electronically linked to the multiple drive modes to fine-tune the ride and handling on the go.

On the safety front, the Omoda 9 has eight airbags fitted as standard, along with a comprehensive driver assistance package which includes any and every system under the sun.

Think lane keeping and departure control, rear cross-traffic alert and braking, blind spot detection, lane change assist and door opening warning. If you have little kids, there are two ISOFIX points on the outboard rear seats.

The drivetrain is complex and comprehensive but suffice to say there’s more than enough of everything. The Omoda 9 sports the company’s latest Super Hybrid system, which uses a combination of a decently-sized 34kWh NMC battery under the passenger compartment to supplement the 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine and the trio of electric motors that power all four wheels.

If you select the Sports driving mode, it’s possible to summon up 395kW of power and 650Nm of torque. Those figures are wound back in Normal and Eco modes. If you want to drive in electric-only mode, Omoda claims a 159km range on the optimistic NEDC testing cycle and 145km under the more realistic WLTP standard.

The high-tech Chinese SUV is covered by an eight-year, unlimited kilometre warranty – which also includes the battery.

The onslaught of new vehicles onto the Australian new car market continues unabated, and it would be natural to feel a bit of scepticism for a vehicle that appears on the face of it to offer a great deal of content for a relatively affordable price.

At first blush, however, the Omoda 9 is a decent contender for a five-seat family SUV. It presents well on the driveway, with a strong presence and stylised (if derivative) lines front to back.

Getting underway needs nothing more than a bum on the seat and seatbelt buckled up, easing away in hybrid mode quietly and effortlessly.

The brake pedal is ultra-sharp at first but can be moderated easily and the seamless switch between petrol and electric modes is properly impressive once under way. A brief rip in Sport mode suggests that 395kW isn’t far off the mark, but the throttle pedal response is way too sharp to use for extended periods in traffic.

Omoda claims this vehicle will rip from 0-100km/h in 4.9 seconds. So yes, it’s really fast.

Plonk it in Normal mode, though, and the Omoda 9 is a comfortable, easy SUV to pilot with driver assist aids that are very well tuned to help and not hinder the driver.

Hefty knurled alloy dials allow easy access to functions like drive modes and air conditioning, which means less time swiping left and right to change functions on the run.

The boot is decently sized, there’s plenty of room in the back row and the technology suite is nicely executed throughout the car. First impressions are fairly positive.

The suspension feel in the Omoda 9 can be switched – not easily, it must be said – to improve comfort or handling, but the chassis still felt underdone in the first car we drove on our short test.

Steering feel is quite light and vague though it can be electronically tuned up a little to suit different tastes.

However, the suspension tune on the second car we tried was a marked improvement, with much less lurch and roll and the use of the three-stage regenerative braking mode also improved matters.

There is a tendency for the ADAS’s driver distraction function to overreach and the arcade game-style live traffic map on the dash looks cheap and underdone – and is annoying to look at.

The seats front and back are perched a little too high thanks to the battery underneath the floor of the cabin, while some users found the gear stalk on the right side of the steering wheel to be awkwardly placed, especially for those brought up driving with the indicator stalk on that side of the wheel.

The driver’s seat base is a bit narrow too, though the bolster extension is a welcome addition.

Luxurious feel and oodles of technology are the calling cards of the modern SUV, and the Omoda 9 offers both in spades. Though the 9 is yet to be rated by ANCAP, the safety suite is seriously comprehensive and very well integrated into the car (driver distraction warnings notwithstanding), with minimal intrusions to the job of driving the car.

If used to its fullest, the Super Hybrid system will reduce trips to the bowser to almost zero – and 395kW on tap is no bad thing for that odd overtake manoeuvre.

Having an eight-year, unlimited kilometre warranty on all aspects of the car, including the battery, is also a plus, as is the brand’s fixed priced service plan.

If you don’t need a third row of seats and there are a few miles to cover in your average month, the Omoda 9 is a worthy addition to the consideration list.

2025 Omoda 9 Virtue at a glance:
Price: $61,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder turbo-petrol hybrid
Output: 395kW/650Nm
Transmission: 3-speed reduction gear/11-speed dual clutch
Fuel: 1.4L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 32g/km (ADR Combined)
Battery: 34kWh lithium-ion
Range: 1100km (combined) 145km (EV only, WLTP)
Energy consumption: 19.3kWh/km (NEDC)
Safety rating: Not tested

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