Electric performance cars have reached a slightly strange point, and producing enormous horsepower is no longer particularly difficult. However, put two sufficiently powerful electric motors into a car, give them enough battery current and another 600-hp EV appears.
Making that car genuinely useful over long distances is harder. That’s where the Zeekr 7GT becomes interesting.
The electric grand tourer has now reached European customers after opening for orders earlier this year, and the numbers are certainly dramatic enough. Depending on specification, Zeekr quotes up to 655 kilometers of WLTP range, while the most powerful Privilege AWD version produces 475 kW, or 646 hp.
But those figures only tell part of the story.
The 7GT uses an 800-volt electrical architecture, allowing its battery to accept extremely high charging power when connected to a suitable DC charger. Zeekr says a 10-to-80-percent charging session can take around 13 minutes under the right conditions.
For a grand tourer, that arguably matters more than shaving another few tenths from its acceleration time.
Long-distance EV travel rarely depends entirely on the maximum range shown on the dashboard. What matters is how quickly the car can recover useful distance once that battery eventually runs down.
A vehicle capable of travelling more than 600 km and then returning to the road after a short charging stop begins to behave rather differently from early electric cars that required drivers to plan lengthy breaks around the battery.
Performance hasn’t exactly been sacrificed in pursuit of practicality.
The AWD 7GT can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in roughly 3.3 seconds, placing a large electric grand tourer firmly into territory that would have belonged to serious sports cars not very long ago. Zeekr also offers rear-wheel-drive configurations for buyers more interested in efficiency than maximum acceleration.
Then there’s the shape.
Instead of producing another tall electric SUV, Zeekr’s European design team in Gothenburg created something closer to a shooting brake. The long roof gives the 7GT useful luggage capacity and family-car practicality without turning it into another high-riding crossover.
That decision alone makes it stand out.
Zeekr says 3,800 examples had already been sold in Europe by the time German customer deliveries began in July, suggesting there is at least some appetite for an electric car that sits somewhere between an estate, fastback and conventional GT.
The challenge is that Zeekr is still introducing itself to many European buyers.
Mercedes, BMW and Audi don’t have to explain who they are before selling an expensive performance car. Zeekr does, regardless of how impressive the specification sheet looks.
Technology can help shorten that process. Six hundred and forty-six horsepower attracts attention. A 655-km range makes the car easier to live with.
But being able to refill most of the battery during a coffee stop may ultimately be the specification owners appreciate most.
