The cute one
I've wanted to drive the Dongfeng Box since the first time I saw one. Dongfeng markets it at young women, and I wanted to know what that actually means once you're behind the wheel rather than looking at a brochure. So for a week, the Box R was mine. It's the third and last Dongfeng on eevee, after the 007 and the Vigo, and the one I'd been waiting for.
And after all that, I get it.
If I had to describe this car in one sentence, it would be: baby girl's first car. I mean that in the best possible way.
The cabin
The first thing I noticed was the massive drawer on the passenger side, which immediately made me think of makeup. Lip gloss, powder, moisturiser, all the random little things you want to keep in your car. My moisturiser fits in there, and my moisturiser is MASSIVE. Nobody is buying a car because it has somewhere to store their lip gloss, but I love details like this. It feels like someone thought about the person who would actually be using the car.
The rest of the interior has that same soft, girly pop feeling. There's quilted detailing across the dash and on the doors, and everything feels plush to the touch. It's also better built than I expected. Smaller, cuter cars often come with a lot of hard plastic and a faintly cheap feel, and I didn't get that here. The seats are comfortable, the interior colour options are very cute, and the whole thing manages to feel feminine without being overdone.
For such a small car, there's also a surprising amount of space. The back seats are rather roomy, which I wasn't expecting when I first looked at it from the outside. The boot surprised me too. It's deeper than it is wide, but we managed to fit a whole foldable chair in there without any drama. Despite the footprint, you get a decent amount of usable space.
The screen is unnecessarily cute
The main screen might be one of my favourite things about the car, purely because someone clearly had fun designing it. There's a little interactive living room on it, complete with a cat, a lamp, a clock on the wall and a music player. Tap the cat and it reacts and sits up. Tap the lamp and it shortcuts you to the cabin lighting controls. You can customise the whole room, right down to whether your music player looks like a gramophone or a plain little radio.
Does any of this improve the driving experience? No. Did I enjoy it immensely? Obviously.
CarPlay was seamless. I connected my phone and it just worked, which is exactly what I want from it. The one thing that annoyed me is that Google Maps takes over the entire main screen, so I couldn't see what song was playing. There's a tiny square display in front of the driver that shows your speed and the essentials, and I really wish I could set it to show my music as well. I don't need it to do anything exciting. I just want to know what's playing without leaving Maps.
I also wish there were more physical buttons. If my passenger wants to adjust the volume, they can't reach over and turn a dial. I have to do it. I know putting everything on the touchscreen is meant to feel modern, but some things should stay classic. A volume knob worked perfectly well. Give me the volume knob.
The driver assistance is fine. Standard lane keeping, adaptive cruise and the usual suite of warnings, nothing that nagged me, and it remembered my settings between drives, which not every car does. The gap is blind-spot monitoring. There isn't any, and in Singapore traffic that's not great.
What it's like to drive
The actual driving experience is very easy. You get in and go. There isn't a huge amount to adjust or optimise, and while some people want more settings and more control, I think the simplicity makes sense for this particular car. It's zippy, agile, small and easy to manoeuvre, and it feels like the kind of car you could get straight after passing your test and be comfortable in within a day.
That's where the baby girl's first car thing comes from. If you've just got your licence and you want something cute that gets you from A to B without making the whole experience complicated, the Box R makes sense. Not everybody wants to sit in a carpark for ten minutes configuring seventeen settings before they can leave.
A volume knob worked perfectly well. Give me the volume knob.
The steering wheel is a little small for me. I'm not asking for some ridiculous van-sized wheel, just a normal one. This one felt slightly too small in my hands, although I can see how it contributes to that nimble feeling.
My biggest issue is responsiveness. You have to press the accelerator quite hard before the car really goes. Press it lightly and it sort of crawls, and then you have to put your foot down considerably more before you get a decent amount of acceleration. The brakes are similar. They aren't as immediate as I'd like, and if you get a little close to the car in front and need to slow quickly, you'd really have to press hard. For a car that otherwise feels so eager, I wanted the pedals to match.
The suspension isn't fantastic either. You notice the bumps. The seats are comfortable and the cabin is a nice place to sit, but the ride underneath could be smoother.
Living with it in Singapore
Over our week the Box R averaged 10.5 kWh/100 km. A full battery showed about 375 km against a 430 km claim. That's from a 42.3 kWh LFP pack, so you can charge it to 100% every time without worrying about the battery.
Charging peaks at 70 kW on DC and 6.6 kW on AC, so this is a car you plug in overnight at home or the condo rather than one you fast-charge on the go. With this much real range from a battery this small, that's fine.
The aircon is decent, no complaints. The surprise is the ventilated seats. Both front seats have them, as standard, where the regular Box only ventilates the driver's, and at this price I didn't expect that. They got used every single day.
The money
On Volt Auto's current list the Box R is S$166,888 with an eight-bid non-guaranteed COE. That's Cat A money for a car with ventilated seats on both front chairs, a powered memory driver's seat, wireless charging, a 540-degree camera and the 6.6 kW onboard charger all standard, backed by a five-year vehicle warranty and ten years unlimited mileage on the battery.
Is it good value? Yes. You get so much as standard.
The verdict
Honestly, I would recommend it, especially as a first car. If you want something cute, compact and extremely easy to drive without being overwhelmed by a million settings, the Dongfeng Box R makes a lot of sense. And yes, I completely understand why it gets described as female-centric. You've got the makeup-friendly drawer, the quilted interior, the cute colour options and a literal cat living in your screen. I cannot picture a man getting into this car and saying "oh, the interior is so cute." Maybe that man exists. I just haven't met him.
Aesthetically, the outside isn't completely my thing. I prefer sharper, more angular styling and the Box R is very rounded. But as an everyday car there's a lot I like. It's comfortable, uncomplicated and surprisingly spacious for its size, and it has enough personality that it never feels like just another small car.
I wish the accelerator and brakes were more responsive, I wish the suspension was a little better, I would add more physical buttons, and I still want that little driver screen to tell me what song I'm listening to. None of that changes what the Box R fundamentally is.
Baby girl's first car.