• Vast rear seat space
• Very easy access
• Not yet assessed by Euro NCAP

How much space is there?

Chinese drivers like to have a lot of back seat legroom in their cars and the Skywell BE11 doesn’t disappoint. Our five-foot-ten tester found he could lounge with several of inches of clearance, while leaving the person in front plenty of space (the image below shows the seat pushed all the way back). No rival SUV comes close to matching the BE11 here and it’s very close to the famously spacious Skoda Superb.

Headroom doesn’t quite match, but there’s still plenty for anyone up to about six feet tall. The bench is only wide enough for two adults or three children at a pinch, as is the case with most other cars of this type.

That legroom should allow even the most enormous of child seats to slot in with space to spare. The back doors open really wide, which is useful getting the kids in and out, and the seats are at at the right level to simply slide into them.

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Up front, space is similarly generous. There’s more than enough leg and shoulder room for most people though, again, headroom might be tight if you’re particularly tall. Blame the sunroof for that.

Boot space and storage

At 467 litres, the Skywell BE11’s boot is hardly tiny, but it’s considerably smaller than that in the Skoda Enyaq (585 litres) and Renault Scenic (545 litres), but it’s comparable to the Ford Explorer (470 litres) and Nissan Ariya (466 litres). It’s a usefully wide, square space, though you have to heave loads up quite a long way.

The tailgate features hands-free opening by waving your foot under the back bumper’s right-hand corner. The retractable load cover felt extremely flimsy, and there are no tie-downs or hooks. Under the boot floor, there’s an extra compartment to store the charging cable.

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The back seats fold down in a 60:40 split to create extra space – Skywell doesn’t say how much. The seats fold flat by lifting and pivoting the base forwards on wobbly hinges, there’s no way to secure the seat belt clips out of the way and there’s a sensor wire to unplug. We found the whole process – especially putting everything back together – was a considerable faff.

There’s a reasonable amount of interior storage in the usual places. The wireless charging pad is on a shelf underneath the centre console and the three-pin socket for the back seats is a nice touch.

Is it easy to park?

The Skywell BE11 isn’t a particularly large car at 4.7 metres long and 1.9 metres and it’ll slot into most UK parking spaces with room to spare. We found the light steering and good visibility out help, as do the front and rear parking sensors and 360-degree surround-view monitoring system.

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Safety

• No Euro NCAP rating – yet
• Plenty of safety features
• And more coming

The Skywell BE11 is so new to market in Europe that its safety hasn’t been assessed by Euro NCAP. That may happen at some point in the future; if it does, we’ll update this review with the results. Skywell highlights safety features including traction control, hill start assist, hill descent control and two sets of Isofix child seat mounts. Autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and speed limit warning among other features should be fitted to BE11s available from showrooms, as they’re legally required in the UK.