This car is assembled at Avtotor, and in fact it is a well-established Chery Arrizo 7.
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One of these days, a new car should appear on sale, the production of which has been established at the Kaliningrad Avtotor. This is a Kaiyi E5 sedan. The assembly is still SKD, but the localization process has already been started.
The company also plans to sell sedans, for which 80 Kaiyi dealerships will appear in Russia by the end of the year. They will be located in all major cities.
The car has every chance of becoming a bestseller on the Russian market. So says Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, the oldest and most authoritative automotive publication in Russia, who has studied the car.
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Pros of Kaiyi E5
The first plus that immediately catches your eye is the quality of the interior. There are bucket-shaped front seats with integrated headrests, like in a BMW or the “seven” Zhiguli. Soft inserts on the front panel and doors, which are framed with red stitching, will also be a pleasant surprise. Basically, plastic is hard, but due to its texture it does not seem so.
The second plus is the engine.
This is a 1.5-liter gasoline turbo engine with 147 hp. Its reliability in Russian conditions has already been tested, since it was installed on Chery Arrizo 7 sold in our country, and these cars are already eight years old, and there are no complaints about them.
From the pleasant: the engine has a cast-iron block that can be bored and sleeved, as well as a timing chain drive. The approximate resource of the motor is about 300 thousand kilometers. By the way, repair kits for sleeves are already on sale. In addition, the turbo engine is designed for continuous operation on 92-octane gasoline.
The third plus is also very important. This is a variator, which is also time-tested and is produced in China in millions of copies. It has nine fixed quasi gears for manual control enthusiasts. And most importantly – the resource of the unit with a calm driving style will be 200 thousand kilometers.
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Cons Kaiyi E5
First, not everyone will like the car’s moderate ground clearance. It is about 16 cm under the protection of the sedan engine. By the way, the protection itself is not steel, but plastic. Therefore, when driving off the asphalt, you must be careful and careful.
Secondly, the steering column is not adjustable for reach. It can only be adjusted in height, which imposes some restrictions on fitting the driver’s seat for themselves.
Read about other features of Kaiyi E5 in the March issue of the magazine “Behind the wheel” – already on sale.
The material was prepared based on the article by Maxim Kadakov “Kai instead of Kia”, published in the magazine “Za Rulem” No. 3/2023.
