Forget Six Seats: The V8X Shows Why Big SUVs Are Going Five

One Platform, Two Personalities

When Weiqai launched the V9X last year, it was a six-seat family hauler built on a dedicated platform. Now the company is back with the V8X, and the most interesting thing about it isn't the specs—it's the thinking. The V8X uses the exact same platform and wheelbase as the V9X, but it only has five seats. That's it. No third row, no extra length, no re-engineering. Just a different seating layout and a much bigger trunk.

This isn't just a cheaper version of the V9X. It's a different answer to the same question: what does a family actually need? The V9X says six seats for the occasional full car. The V8X says most trips are with three or four people, so why carry around two seats you rarely use?

What You Get for the Money

The V8X launched on August 14 in China with five plug-in hybrid trims. Prices start at 239,800 yuan for the Sport Max and go up to 315,800 yuan for the Luxury Family Ultra+. That's roughly $33,000 to $44,000. Weiqai also threw in a bunch of launch incentives: a 5,000 yuan deposit gets you 8,000 yuan off, plus either a 10,000 yuan trade-in subsidy or a 3-year zero-interest financing plan.

• Luxury Family Max: 259,800 yuan
• Luxury Family Ultra: 279,800 yuan
• Luxury Family Ultra+: 315,800 yuan
• Sport Max: 239,800 yuan
• Sport Ultra: 279,800 yuan

The Luxury Family Ultra can add rear-wheel steering for an extra 5,000 yuan (a 3,000 yuan discount off the normal 8,000 yuan price), and the Sport trims get a free blacked-out appearance package and red interior.

The Big Five Is Really Big

Here's the thing: the V8X Luxury Family version has a wheelbase of 3,050mm, identical to the V9X. The body is only 80mm shorter. That means the interior space is basically the same—5.9 square meters of usable cabin area—but now it's spread across two rows instead of three. The second row gets more legroom because it doesn't have to make room for a third row. And the trunk? It's huge. Regular capacity is 864 liters, which Weiqai says can fit twelve 20-inch carry-on suitcases. Fold the second row flat and you get 2,225 liters.

That's the real advantage over the six-seat V9X. You don't have to fold down the third row to carry luggage. You don't have to play Tetris with a stroller, camping gear, and a week's worth of groceries. The space is just there, all the time.

Quiet Is a Feature, Not an Afterthought

Weiqai spent a lot of time on noise control, which is unusual for a launch presentation. They talked about it early, right after the seating layout. The V8X uses nine pieces of acoustic glass, a triple-sealed door structure, and 104 aerodynamic optimizations to keep wind noise out. But wind is only half the battle in a hybrid. There's also engine noise and road noise.

So they added active noise cancellation. ENC handles engine sounds, RNC handles road noise. Both use the car's speakers to play inverse sound waves that cancel out specific frequencies. It's a two-layer approach: block what you can, cancel what gets through. The goal is a quiet cabin at highway speeds, which is exactly what you want on a long family trip.

Performance That Doesn't Fade When the Battery Dies

The V8X Luxury Family Ultra uses a 1.5L turbo hybrid system with a combined 450kW and 790Nm of torque. It does 0-100 km/h in 4.9 seconds with a full battery and 5.0 seconds when the battery is low. The Ultra+ upgrades to a 2.0L turbo, pushing output to 500kW and 930Nm, with a 4.5-second 0-100 time both charged and discharged. That's a difference of only 0.2 seconds between full and depleted battery—a big deal for a heavy SUV.

Weiqai's four-speed DHT transmission keeps power delivery smooth, avoiding the hesitation you often feel in other hybrids. The 66.6kWh battery gives 402km of CLTC electric range, and with the 6C fast charging, you can add 170km of range in just five minutes. Total CLTC range for the Ultra+ is 1,659km.

Ride and Handling: Big Car, Small Turns

The V8X has double-wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension. The Luxury Family trims come with dual-chamber air suspension, which adjusts support by changing air chamber volume. The Sport trims use continuously variable dampers that react to road conditions in real time.

But the most impressive bit is the rear-wheel steering. The Ultra+ gets it standard, and the Ultra can get it for that 5,000 yuan upgrade. The rear wheels can turn up to 10 degrees in each direction, reducing the turning radius to just 5 meters. That's tighter than many smaller cars. In a 5.1-meter SUV, that makes a huge difference in parking lots and tight city streets.

Smart Features for Real Life

The V8X runs on a Thor-U chip with 700 TOPS of computing power, backed by 27 sensors including a lidar. It supports full-scene NOA (navigation on autopilot) from parking spot to parking spot—exit the garage, drive through city streets and highways, then park at your destination, all on the same system. Weiqai is offering lifetime free access to city and highway NOA, a value of 32,000 yuan, as part of the launch package.

Inside, the voice assistant "Xiao Wei" can handle more than just navigation. You can tell it to start moving, change lanes, adjust speed, make a U-turn, or park. It also learns preferences per seat—so if the driver likes the seat at a certain position and the passenger likes a different temperature, it remembers that.

The Trend: Big SUVs Are Going Five-Seat

The V8X isn't alone in this approach. The NIO ES8 has a five-seat version, and the Ledo L80 is another example. As platform costs for large electric SUVs climb, automakers are realizing it's cheaper to offer multiple seating layouts on the same platform than to develop separate models. It's a win-win: the company saves on R&D, and customers get a choice that fits their family size without paying for a bigger platform than they need.

Weiqai is betting that a lot of families don't need six seats. They need space—for luggage, for kids, for life. The V8X delivers that space without the compromise of a cramped third row. Whether that's enough to win over buyers in a crowded market remains to be seen, but it's a smart bet.