This Chinese SUV Can Literally Drive Into Water and Keep Going

In a market where new SUVs keep popping up every week, it’s getting harder to do something that actually sticks. Jetour seems to have found a way.

This is the G700. At first glance, it just looks like another big, squared-off off-roader. Solid, tough, nothing out of the ordinary. Then you find out it can drive straight into water and keep going. That’s when it clicks. This one’s called the Ark Edition, and the name starts to make sense.

What’s interesting is how it changes once it leaves the ground. The wheels stop mattering. The 2.0-liter plug-in hybrid setup, along with the electric motors, switches over to powering propellers. So instead of pushing through water, it moves as it belongs there. There’s also a gyroscopic system keeping everything balanced, which you probably appreciate the moment the surface gets rough. It was already shown crossing a lake near Beijing, so this isn’t just talk.

Jetour says the water mode is there for real situations, like flooded roads where most SUVs would just give up. Still, you can already picture people testing it just because they can.

On land, it’s seriously capable. 892 hp, 837 lb-ft, and 0–62 mph in 4.6 seconds. Quick for something this big. And with three locking diffs, it’s ready for real off-road work too.

Then there’s the battery - 31.4 kWh from CATL, around 150 km of electric range. Charging from 20 to 80 percent takes about 10 minutes, which is solid for something this big.

You end up with this unusual mix. A proper SUV, a capable off-roader, and something that doesn’t panic when the road disappears. You don’t really expect all that in one car, but here it is.