Geely Galaxy M9 Matches Palisade, Telluride Quality at a Fraction of the Price

A three-row plug-in hybrid that retails for roughly $25,000 in China just cleared Edmunds' most rigorous testing gauntlet, recording a 0-to-60 mph sprint of 4.2 seconds, an emergency braking distance of 110 feet, and a cabin noise level at idle of 32.5 decibels, a figure quieter than the Rolls-Royce Spectre. The vehicle was the Geely Galaxy M9, a family SUV Americans cannot legally purchase.

Edmunds editor-in-chief Alistair Weaver put the Galaxy M9 through the outlet's full 227-point evaluation over roughly three weeks in Los Angeles, combining everyday driving with structured track sessions at the outlet's Southern California facility. His verdict carried a pointed edge: many of the M9's features are "ahead of the vehicles that we're driving in the U.S.," he said after completing the assessment. "The technology is terrific."

The M9 Edmunds tested was the Pilot trim, all-wheel-drive variant. At 5,771 pounds, it produces 858 horsepower and 859 lb-ft of torque from a system pairing electric motors fed by a 41-kWh battery with a turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine that functions primarily as a generator. Geely estimates total driving range at 808 miles, of which 130 are purely electric; Edmunds extracted 101 miles of EV range before the generator engaged. The quarter-mile pass came in at 12.9 seconds at 98.6 mph, placing the M9 in the same bracket as the BMW X5 plug-in hybrid. A Lexus TX 550h plug-in, by comparison, needed 5.6 seconds just to reach 60 mph. The 110-foot braking distance matched the BMW X5 M outright.

The interior matched the powertrain in ambition. Heated, ventilated, and massaging seats extend to the second row. Third-row seats are heated and power-recline. Every seat except the driver's folds flat at the touch of a button, and a rear-compartment refrigerator can switch between cooling and warming. Edmunds concluded the M9 could hold its own against a fully loaded Hyundai Palisade, Kia Telluride, or Toyota Grand Highlander, noting that Chinese cars have "come a long way."

Edmunds obtained the vehicle after Weaver's team connected with Geely executives at CES earlier in 2026; Geely left the M9 in the U.S. after the show. Geely framed the handover carefully. "Geely continuously evaluates global markets, but our current commercial focus for the Galaxy M9 remains on China," a spokesperson said, positioning the test access as a demonstration of technological capability rather than a signal of U.S. market entry.

That framing will offer little comfort to domestic automakers. Chinese-made passenger vehicles remain blocked by tariffs of roughly 100 percent, along with unresolved regulatory compliance requirements including crash testing and emissions certification, and national-security objections tied to connected-vehicle data. Ford and Stellantis are both planning to introduce their own extended-range hybrid programs in the U.S., a segment Chinese manufacturers have sold for years.

Tu Le, founder of the consultancy Sino Auto Insights, attributed the M9's price-to-performance ratio to the relentless competitive pressure inside China's car market, which has forced automakers to load features into vehicles at compressed margins. A recent Cox Automotive survey found U.S. consumers are growing more open to Chinese-brand vehicles, with some already exploring gray-market routes through Mexico and Canada, where Chinese models are increasingly prevalent.

The gap between what Edmunds measured on a Los Angeles test track and what federal policy currently permits in a showroom is considerable. With Ford and Stellantis still months from launching their own range-extender programs, the M9's benchmark numbers give market analysts a concrete measure of how far Detroit's pipeline still needs to travel.