2026 Chery Tiggo 7 MY26 Priced for Australia: Smaller 1.5T Petrol From $29,990 Driveaway, Super Hybrid PHEV From $34,990

Image credit: Chery Australia

Chery has just pulled off a slightly weird move on the Tiggo 7 mid-size SUV. The MY26 petrol refresh keeps the same driveaway prices as the outgoing car, but under the bonnet the 1.6-litre turbo is gone and a smaller 1.5-litre turbo takes its place. That knocks power down a little. At the same time, Chery Australia is launching the first plug-in Tiggo 7, the Super Hybrid, from $34,990 driveaway on a launch offer, which lands it as the cheapest new PHEV SUV on the market right now. For a buyer with $35,000 to spend, the question is no longer petrol or hybrid, it is petrol or plug-in for the same money.

Pricing (driveaway, national)

The two Super Hybrid launch prices apply to new-stock cars ordered and delivered by participating Chery dealers between 1 July and 30 September 2026. After that window, the recommended driveaway steps up to $39,990 for the Urban and $43,990 for the Ultimate. The petrol prices carry over untouched from the outgoing 1.6T car, so you are getting the MY26 refresh, the new 1.5T engine and a slightly quieter tune for the same money.

MY26 Petrol: Smaller Engine, Same Money

The big under-the-skin change on the MY26 petrol Tiggo 7 is the switch from the old 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo to a downsized 1.5-litre unit. Peak power drops from 137kW to 108kW and torque falls from 275Nm to 210Nm, sent to the front wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Claimed combined fuel use is 6.9 L/100km. On paper the smaller engine is a step back on outright performance, but Chery has traded some of that for lower fuel use and to help clear the NVES emissions targets that start biting harder from 2026 onwards.

The body is unchanged from the refreshed 2024 Tiggo 7 that arrived in late 2024, so it stays at roughly 4,500mm long on a 2,670mm wheelbase with a five-seat cabin. Urban rides on 18-inch alloys with twin 12.3-inch displays, LED headlights and dual-zone climate control as standard. Ultimate adds a panoramic sunroof, synthetic-leather trim, heated and ventilated front seats, a 360-degree camera and a powered tailgate. Both come with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, six airbags, AEB, lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control and rear cross-traffic alert.

Image credit: Chery Australia

Super Hybrid: A Real Plug-In Underneath

The Super Hybrid is where the Tiggo 7 gets properly interesting. Chery is running a series-parallel plug-in stack: a 1.5-litre turbo petrol at 105kW and 215Nm paired with a single 150kW / 310Nm permanent-magnet electric motor, feeding the front wheels through Chery's Dedicated Hybrid Transmission (DHT). Peak combined output is not quoted as a single figure, but the electric motor is the primary drive source, and the petrol engine spends most of its time acting as a generator until you either drop the pack or ask for a hard overtake.

The pack is an 18.4kWh LFP battery, which is huge by PHEV SUV standards at this price point. That is what gets you the 93km of electric-only range on the NEDC cycle, a claimed 1.4 L/100km combined fuel figure and a combined range of up to 1,200km once you factor in the 60-litre fuel tank. Chery also lists 40kW DC fast-charging on the Super Hybrid, which is quicker than most plug-in rivals still stuck on AC-only.

For context, 93km of NEDC electric range translates to somewhere in the mid-70s to low-80s in real driving. That is genuinely enough to cover a typical Aussie commute of 40 to 50km round trip on the battery alone, then charge overnight on a normal 10-amp plug and never touch petrol from Monday to Friday. Weekends and road trips the petrol motor takes over, and you get back to a normal 6 to 7 L/100km figure once the battery is depleted.

Equipment

Both Urban and Ultimate Super Hybrids get the same cabin as their petrol siblings, so you are looking at dual 12.3-inch screens for the instrument cluster and infotainment, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, dual-zone climate, keyless entry, LED headlights, 18-inch alloys and a full-length sunroof. Ultimate adds a panoramic sunroof, synthetic-leather trim, heated and ventilated front seats, a heated steering wheel, an eight-speaker Sony sound system, wireless phone charging, a 360-degree camera, front parking sensors and a hands-free powered tailgate. Chery has also included vehicle-to-load capability on the Super Hybrid, so you can run a fridge or lights straight out of the pack.

Safety

The petrol Tiggo 7 carries a five-star ANCAP rating under the 2023 to 2025 test protocols, inherited from the earlier Tiggo 7 Pro assessment (88 per cent adult occupant, 87 per cent child occupant, 72 per cent vulnerable road user, 86 per cent safety assist). ANCAP has not yet published a separate rating for the Super Hybrid PHEV variant, so at launch its safety credentials are best described as pending. Standard safety kit across the range includes autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, a driver attention monitor, a reversing camera and rear parking sensors, plus six airbags including front side and full-length curtain bags.

How It Compares

The cheapest new plug-in hybrid SUV title is the interesting part. The Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid Urban at $34,990 driveaway sits below the BYD Sealion 5 Essential PHEV, which is $33,990 before on-roads and lands closer to $36,000 driveaway once you add stamp duty and rego on a metropolitan Victorian delivery. It also comes in under the MG HS Super Hybrid Excite (around $39,990 driveaway), the Jaecoo J7 SHS (from about $41,990 driveaway) and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV ES which starts north of $58,000 before on-roads.

On the petrol side, the MY26 Tiggo 7 Urban at $29,990 driveaway competes with the Haval Jolion S (around $27,990 driveaway), the MG ZS Excite (about $25,990 driveaway) and the base GWM Haval H6 Premium (about $34,490 driveaway). Against a petrol Toyota Corolla Cross GX 2WD at $37,440 before on-roads, the Chery lands somewhere around $5,000 to $6,000 cheaper driveaway and gives you a bigger body with more boot space, though the Toyota still wins comfortably on resale.

Have a look at our Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid vs Honda CR-V hybrid comparison for a like-for-like breakdown against the Japanese hybrid establishment, or the Sealion 5 vs Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid head-to-head if you are choosing between the two cheapest PHEVs.

Warranty and Servicing

Chery backs the whole Tiggo 7 range with a seven-year unlimited-kilometre vehicle warranty, seven years of capped-price servicing and seven years of roadside assistance. The Super Hybrid adds an eight-year unlimited-kilometre high-voltage battery warranty. Chery quotes a seven-year capped-price servicing package for the Super Hybrid at roughly $3,174 total, which averages out to around $453 a year and is one of the cheaper PHEV servicing bills on the market.

What This Means for Buyers

Here is the shopping question. If you have $35,000 driveaway to spend on a mid-size SUV in the second half of 2026, do you take the MY26 petrol Tiggo 7 Ultimate at $33,990 with the bigger wheels, ventilated seats, sunroof and 360 camera, or do you spend an extra $1,000 and get the Super Hybrid Urban with 93km of electric range but the smaller equipment list? On CarSorted, running-cost maths on a 15,000km-a-year commute in Sydney (petrol at $1.90 a litre, off-peak power at 25c per kWh) puts the petrol Ultimate at roughly $1,960 a year in fuel versus about $460 a year in electricity for the Super Hybrid Urban assuming a nightly plug-in and roughly half your driving on battery. That is a $1,500 annual saving, which recovers the $1,000 gap inside eight months and keeps saving you money every year after.

The other angle is what happens if you cannot plug in every night. If your parking is on-street or your workplace does not have a charger, a PHEV loses most of its edge because you spend more time driving on petrol with an extra 200kg of battery in the boot. In that case the MY26 petrol Ultimate at $33,990 driveaway is genuinely the smarter buy, and you can put the difference towards a set of decent tyres. If you can plug in, the Super Hybrid Urban is the cheapest way into a real plug-in SUV in this country right now.

Cross-shop the Chery Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid, Tiggo 7 Petrol, and the wider medium SUV field on the CarSorted directory, or run the numbers side-by-side using our Tiggo 7 Super Hybrid vs MG HS comparison.