Li Auto L9
Published · Researched 2026-09-21
Li Auto L9 review: the best family SUV you probably shouldn't import
The Li Auto L9 is for the Chinese family buyer who wants Range Rover serenity at half the money with no range anxiety ever — and it delivers. For everyone outside China, it's a grey import with no warranty, no parts pipeline, and no safety net. Verdict: magnificent car, brutal ownership proposition anywhere it isn't officially sold.
What it is. A full-size six-seat luxury SUV with a range-extender powertrain: a 1.5-liter petrol engine that never drives the wheels, existing only to generate electricity for the dual motors. The 2022 original offered 408 hp and about 215 km of electric range; the all-new 2026 car (Ultra/Livis editions) stretches that to ~350–420 km electric and up to 1,650 km combined, adds 800V active suspension, steer-by-wire, and rear-wheel steering. At 5.2 meters long with a fridge, rear cinema screens, and massaging everything, it's less a car than a family apartment that does 1,000-km days.
What's genuinely good. In China, owners are devoted, and it's easy to see why. The ride is the headline: serene, silent, and — in the new car — genuinely composed, with testers saying it now approaches European premium benchmarks instead of just floating. The family packaging is unmatched at the price: six real seats, heated/ventilated/massaging, a center-console fridge that does hot and cold, rear screens with gesture control. The EREV formula is the cheat code — silent electric commuting all week, petrol backup for the 1,300-km holiday drive, no charger hunting, no planning. ADAS is intuitive, the cabin tech is fast, and Li Auto's software team ships updates that owners actually notice. Against a BMW X7 or Range Rover at multiples of the price, the value argument isn't close — in China.
What's actually wrong. Two separate conversations. The car's flaws: no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, almost no physical buttons, and a quality record with real dents — the 2022 suspension-buffer failure that broke a test car over a pothole (fixed with stronger parts and an 8-year air-spring warranty), and the late-2025 front-wheel noise episode across the L series that ended with Li Auto firing employees, replacing parts, and offering owners no compensation. The brand's Mega MPV coolant recall and first quarterly loss in three years sit in the background like a weather system. Then the export reality, which dwarfs all of that: the L9 is not officially sold in Europe, the UK, or the US. Every car you see outside China, Central Asia, and the Middle East is a grey import — no factory warranty, no guaranteed OTA updates, a parts supply chain that runs through your importer's goodwill and a shipping container from China, and software localized for somewhere else. The range extender is a petrol engine that needs servicing; ask your importer who does that, watch them pause, and you've learned everything. Skip it if you live anywhere without an official Li Auto presence — which is everywhere except China and a handful of Central Asian/Middle Eastern markets — unless you truly understand that you're buying a beautiful orphan.
The social pulse. In China: one of the most loved family vehicles in the market, with an owner community that treats the L9 as the default answer to "best road-trip car." The company's public firings over quality read as accountability to loyalists and chaos to skeptics. Outside China: a thin layer of YouTube awe ("alien suspension," "death of the car jack") and expat curiosity, no real owner community, and PR-wire coverage of the Central Asia rollout. Nobody is faking enthusiasm for this car; the enthusiasm is real, and so is the border it stops at.
The value call. China: new-gen from ~409,800 RMB (UNVERIFIED exact figure) — an absurd amount of car for the money, and the 2026 all-new L9 is the one to buy. Grey import to Europe: whatever the importer asks plus the invisible cost of zero warranty — against a used BMW X7 or a Kia EV9 with a dealer network, the L9 only wins if the discount is enormous and your risk tolerance is too. Nearest alternatives: Aito M9 (China), used Range Rover (everywhere, with bills to match), Kia EV9 (the sane electric 6/7-seater with a warranty). Sweet-spot year: 2026 (all-new L9) — third-gen EREV, 800V active suspension, debugged after the 2025 quality episode. Skip 2022 — first-year car, suspension-incident era, least mature software. Treat 2025 first-year new-gen cars with caution — the front-wheel noise episode lives there. And for grey-import buyers: there is no sweet-spot year, only a sweet-spot price — one low enough that you could swallow a dead air-suspension compressor without crying.
The L9 is the best argument that Chinese family SUVs have caught the Germans. It's also the best argument for buying cars that your local dealer can fix.