Side-by-side video of Chinese EV's attempt to recreate Range Rover ‘Stairway to Heaven’ climb next to real thing is very awkward to watch

Chinese automaker Chery attempted to recreate the viral Range Rover ‘Stairway to Heaven’ climb in China, but it all went very wrong very quickly.

The thing is, the Range Rover made it look so easy, but it clearly wasn’t.

And Chery’s disastrous attempt proved it.

And there’s another thing worth mentioning.

The Range Rover made it look like the easiest thing in the world

A while back, around eight years ago in 2018, Land Rover went viral after successfully climbing 999 steps on the so-called ‘Stairway to Heaven’ using a stock Range Rover Sport PHEV.

The location Land Rover picked for this challenge was Tianmen Mountain Road in the Hunan Province of China.

Specifically, they picked a section that is known as ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (hence why they call it the ‘Stairway to Heaven’), an extremely steep stairway comprising 999 man-made steps.

And, as you can see from the image below, it is much, much steeper than it looks in some pictures.

What was really crazy was the fact that Land Rover didn’t even pick the off-road specialist in the lineup, the Range Rover, but instead used the ‘regular’ Range Rover Sport, which is supposed to be the city-friendly SUV.

The Range Rover made it look easy, but, as Chery proved, it was not easy at all.

The Chinese automaker’s attempt didn’t really work at all

Chery Automobile, a Chinese automaker, attempted to recreate the Stairway to Heaven challenge, but everything went wrong quite quickly, and then things got even worse.

It became clear right away, literally after a few seconds, that the SUV wasn’t going to be able to climb the steps seamlessly.

A few moments after that, it became clear that it wasn’t going to do it all.

And then things got worse because, after failing to climb the steps, the driver lost control of the vehicle and ended up crashing into the barrier.

Chery has obviously promised to pay for a complete repair of the damage, and actually apologized for the botched attempt.

There’s a bit of a misconception surrounding these types of vehicles

The vehicle that Chery used for the challenge in China was the Chery Fulwin X3L, which is often categorized as an EV.

The irony is that this definition is both accurate and inaccurate.

The Fulwin X3L is what they call an EREV – or sometimes REEV.

These acronyms mean the same thing: Range Extender Electric Vehicle or Extended-Range Electric Vehicle.

EREVs/REEVs rely on small gas engines that are used as range extenders for the electric motor.

In theory, they call them EVs and not a hybrid because the gas engine’s only job is to aid the electric motor, and because there is no mechanical link between the gas engine and the wheels.

In practice, by definition, they’re still hybrids because they both use both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor.

But, for reasons that are probably anchored in marketing more than reality, they’re often mentioned under the same umbrella as electric cars that have no internal combustion engines at all.

But, as we all know, marketing’s marketing.