Suddenly, Australia is being inundated in affordable plug-in hybrid Chinese SUVs. The latest one to arrive is the Geely Starray EM-i and it’s also one of the most significant.
Why? Well, even among all these swaggering Chinese brands Geely is a heavyweight. When Geely strides into the bar the piano stops playing and everyone starts getting nervous.
So yep, while the Starray EM-i follows the BYD Sealion 6, Chery Tiggo 7 CSH, GWM Haval H6 and H6GT PHEVs, Jaecoo J7 SHS and MG HS Super Hybrid into Australia it’s an instant contender.
It ticks lots of the boxes necessary for success.
READ MORE: Chinese sales sensation Geely EX2 “in the plan” for Australia! Mini EV is so popular it outsells the BYD Seagull and Tesla Model Y in China!
READ MORE: So close! 2025 Geely Starray EM-i pricing leaves Chery Tiggo 7 as Australia cheapest plug-in hybrid … but only just
READ MORE: 2026 Geely Galaxy M9 three-row PHEV SUV priced: This thing is a luxurious and cheap rival for the Mercedes-Benz GLS and BMW X7
2025 Geely Starray EM-i Inspire price and equipment
First and foremost the 2025 Geely Starray EM-I ticks the all-important pricing box. If you want a prime example of Geely flexing its corporate muscle this it.
There are two models, the $37,490 Complete and the $39,990 Inspire. Those prices are plus on-roads, which means the Chery ($39,990 drive-away) retains its place as Australia’s cheapest PHEV with the two Geelys close behind.
Think about that … $40K or thereabouts for a five-door, five-seat medium SUV that is well equipped and includes a complex powertrain that is genuinely efficient.
Once upon a time paying $60,000 for a PHEV Mitsubishi Outlander was about as good as you could do. This is pricing that Japanese plugless hybrids including the Toyota RAV4 struggle to match.
Love them or hate them, there’s no doubting the value the Chinese brands deliver!
The Starray EM-i is based on the same SEA platform as the Geely EX5 EV, has much the same mid-size measurements and comes from much the same soft-edged exterior and interior design school.
The powertrain is the big difference. The Super Hybrid – yes, it’s a Super Hybrid too (I guess one of the Chinese will launch a Super-Dooper Hybrid soon) – combines a 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated petrol engine with and one-speed transmission and two e-motors, one of which provides power and torque to drive the front wheels and the other charge for the 18.4kWh battery pack.
According to WLTP the EV range is 83km and the combined range 943km … precisely.
If you’re judicious with your overnight charging (up to 6.6kW AC) then you should only have to refuel on a longer journey. To help there, Starray also has DC fast charging. At 30kW it isn’t that fast, but it is only a small battery.
So to the equipment. We won’t bore you with a long list, just pluck out some highlights.
Alloy wheels (18s Complete and 19s Inspire), LED headlights, dual digital screens for infotainment and instrumentation, wireless Apple CarPlay (Android comes Q1 2026 via an over the air update), embedded satellite-navigation, six-speaker audio, dual-zone climate control and powered and heated front seats.
Inspire alone adds a panoramic sunroof, a head up display, wireless smartphone charging, a 1000W 16-speaker (in-house Geely) Flyme audio and is very LOUD, headrest speakers for nav instruction and so on but not music, a power tailgate, front parking sensors, 256 colour ambient light, front seat ventilation and driver’s seat memory.
There is lots of safety gear spread across both models including seven airbags, multiple hi-viz camera views the and the full suite of driver assistants led by autonomous emergency braking. It has yet to collect an ANCAP rating.
The high-voltage battery also delivers vehicle to load and vehicle to vehicle charging capability, as well as a camping mode that allows stuff like the radio and air-con to run while stationary without the headlights on.
The Starray comes protected by a seven-year/unlimited km warranty and an eight-year/unlimited high-voltage battery warranty.
Actually, that is quite a long list of stuff isn’t it?
Sadly though, no spare tyre.
2025 Geely Starray EM-i Inspire: What we think
Once you get past the sheer value of this thing and get rolling it becomes apparent the 2025 Geely Starray EM-i’s powertrain is very much the star (pun intended) act.
Smart, strong, smooth and frugal, it drives around devoted to scavenging and preserving as much electricity as possible to extend its zero emissions range.
In pure EV mode in the real world, you’re talking between 60 and 80km depending on the driving environment. The more built-up and stop-start the further you will go.
The instant response EV driving delivers is very helpful in these conditions, it will even light up the front tyres from standstill with a solid tromp of the throttle.
Once operating as a hybrid, the small petrol engine can get a little noisy when revved, but it is very much the support act. Overall, with 193kW on offer, you’re not going to feel underdone for performance.
Nor on combined range. You could really go a long, long way before having to refuel. On a 300km test drive the average came out at 4.2L/100km of preferred 95 RON fuel.
The Starray has a 51 litre tank. Do the sums. You’ll be wanting to stop for a drink before it does.
The driving picture pales a bit beyond here. The basic dynamic set-up is flabby. Apparently, Aussie Starrays have a firmer sports tune and not Chinese domestic. Yikes.
Look, at slower speed around town it’s going to be okay, but it’s under-damped and wobbly once the speed picks up on our notoriously awful highways and byways.
That inability to settle has a negative impact on ride, which just transmits too many inputs. Steering? Apparently it’s also been retuned. Well, I can confirm there’s a steering wheel -– distinctive two-spoke squircle in fact — and when it was turned the car turned, but beyond that they had little feel for each other. There are three steering weights and only the lightest is amenable.
In fact, various aspects of the driving experience can be tuned through different modes – powertrain, brake regen level and feel etcetera. Some of them Geely should just ditch and settle on a tune that works.
Very annoying was the intrusive nature of the speed limit monitoring and lane keeping, which simply had to be shut down to avoid bing-bongs and steering intrusions. Driver monitoring was less annoying but still obvious. It’s disappointing these systems were tested locally by Geely pre-launch and signed off.
Of course these features had to be switched off each time the car was started and it was a convoluted multi-press process. Without a start-stop button it had to be repeated every time you exited the driver’s seat.
So annoying. Oh well, you can always select a cute kitten screen-saver for the touchscreen to sooth your frustrations. Or you could just spend hours wandering through the labyrinth functions and apps it contains. Damn, there is a lot of stuff here.
Intelligent cruise control proved pretty dumb, slowing the car far too dramatically for corners.
The only choice was to drive the Starray via the throttle through the bends and let cruise take over on the next straight. Or just switch the whole thing off and regress 50 years in car tech.
There are some controls on the Starray’s nicely trimmed dashboard and centre console including one big one that adjusts volume, but not enough hard buttons here to avoid too much drilling into the touchscreen.
Otherwise the interior is rather impressive. It looks and feels far more expensive than it is. Admittedly, the trims do become more working class the further from the eyeline you go.
There’s an obvious and secure place to sit your phone. The cabin comes with plenty of storage including a double level centre console and a double cupholder with a smoothly damped lid .
The seats are squidgy, quite supportive and trimmed in something called Geeluxe that looks kinda leather-ish.
There is lots of room up-front, in the back seat – where there are air-con vents, USBs and more cupholders – and in the boot, which expands from a generous 528 litres to an enormous 2065kg when you split-fold the back seat.
No doubt, this thing shapes as great family transport.
2025 Geely Starray EM-i Inspire: Verdict
The Starray EM-i amply demonstrates why Geely’s arrival in Australia is important.
It comes with generous interior space, powertrain economy and performance and a cutting edge price allied with a lot of gear.
Pity then, the drive experience is blighted by those usual Chinese issues of underdone dynamics and overdone driver assists.
Get that stuff right and people will not only buy the Geely Starray EM-i because it’s affordable, they’ll wonder how a car could be so good for the price.
SCORE: 3.75/5
2025 Geely Starray EM-i Inspire specifications
Price: $39,990 plus on-road costs
Basics: PHEV, 5 seats, 5 doors, SUV, FWD
EV range: 83km (WLTP)
Combined range: 943km (WLTP)
Battery capacity: 18.4kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate
Battery warranty: Eight-years/Unlimited km
Energy consumption: 14.7kWh/100km (WLTP)
Fuel consumption: 2.4L/100Km Combined (WLTP)
Powertrain: 1.5-litre four-cylinder 73kW/125Nm
Motors: 1 front, 160kW/262Nm
Combined output: 193kW
AC charging: 6.6kW, Type 2 plug
DC charging: 30kW, CCS2
0-100km/h: 8.0 seconds
