What to expect: South Africa-bound Jetour T2 subtly updated

Ahead of its South African market launch later this year, Chery-owned Jetour has made the subtlest of changes to the T2 in China, aimed at aligning it with models bound for export markets.

Look carefully

Submitted, and therefore also leaked by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology office ahead of its planned reveal late last year, the changes include a restyled grille with the block letter Jetour name script until now not offered in the People’s Republic, a new front bumper and two additional colours.

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While the rear continues as is, a new chrome exterior package and 18-inch alloy wheels round out the T2’s aesthetics.

Inside, the changes are just as incremental and comprise new air vents, improved software for the 15.6-inch infotainment system and an uprated voice recognition system.

Mechanical bits

Known as the Traveler in China, the T2’s fundamentals remain unchanged: its overall length is 4 785 mm, width is 2 006 mm, height is 1 880 mm, and wheelbase is 2 800 mm.

The claimed ground clearance is 220 mm, approach angle 28-degrees, breakover angle 18-degrees and departure angle 30-degrees.

Model line-up

In its home market, the T2/Traveler offers a choice of two conventional combustion engines, both of which have been confirmed for South Africa.

Set to be offered in Momentum and Deluxe grades once sales start, Chery’s familiar 1.5 T-GDI used in the Dashing and X70 Plus opens the T2 range with outputs increased from the former pair’s 115kW/230Nm, to 135kW/290Nm

Drive will be routed to the front wheels only via a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.

Upping the ante, the Deluxe will have the option of not only the bigger 2.0 T-GDI derived from the Tiggo 8 Pro Max but also all-wheel-drive in the shape of Jetour’s XWD system.

The latter sporting active torque vectoring, locking rear and centre differentials and seven driving modes, but no low range transfer case, the inclusion of the all-paw gripping system hasn’t resulted in any added grunt over the two-wheel-drive, meaning similar outputs of 187kW/390Nm

However, transmission options differ with the front-wheel-drive sporting an eight-speed torque converter automatic and the XWD a seven-speed dual-clutch.

Set to arrive in 2026, the plug-in hybrid T2, which falls under the Shanhai designation in China, combines the former unit, albeit detuned to 115kW/220Nm, with a 43.2-kWh battery pack powering a pair of electric motors.

According to China’s sohu.com, the combined system output amounts to 280kW/610Nm, with the all-electric range, based on the CLTC method, is 206 km.

Sending the amount of twist to all four wheels is a three-speed Dedicated Hybrid Transmission (DHT).

On the pricing side

Priced from 139 900 yuan (R352 074) to 184 900 yuan (R465 322) with the Shanhai starting sales next month from the latter figure up to 216 900 yuan (R545 854), local market pricing remains unknown, though a starting price of under R700 000 has been mulled for the 1.5 T-GDI Momentum.

Additional information from carnewschina.com.

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