When Chery Automobile announced plans to climb the iconic 999-step staircase at Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, China, they weren’t just testing a vehicle. They were stepping into one of automotive history’s most daring challenges, a benchmark that only one SUV had ever conquered. The Chery Automobile story here is a tale of ambition meeting reality, of engineering limitations dressed up as marketing opportunity.
- The Dragon Challenge Legacy: A Benchmark Chery Should Not Have Underestimated
- The Moment of the Climb: A Step-by-Step Build-Up of Hope and Shock
- The Range Rover Difference: Why One Brand Climbed and The Other Crumbled
- Risk, Responsibility, and the Public Backlash Against Chery
- Global Eyeballs: How India, China, and the World Reacted
- Closing Reflection: The Thin Line Between Bold Innovation and Blind Overconfidence
- Competitors and Market Positioning: Where the Fengyun X3L Fits
- FAQs About the Stunt, the Fengyun X3L, and Chery Automobile’s Role
- Why did Chery attempt to recreate the Range Rover Dragon Challenge?
- What exactly was the safety rope malfunction?
- Was anyone injured in the incident?
- Why couldn’t the Fengyun X3L make it when the Range Rover Sport did?
- What does this mean for the Chery Fengyun X3L as a vehicle?
- Could the Fengyun X3L succeed at the Dragon Challenge with better preparation?
- How has this affected Chery Automobile’s global reputation?
On November 12, 2025, the world watched as the Fengyun X3L attempted what the Range Rover Sport had accomplished seven years earlier with flawless precision. What happened next became a lesson in hubris, preparation, and why some brands earn legendary status while others stumble in the spotlight.
The Tianmen Mountain challenge represents more than just a stunt. For younger drivers around the world who grew up watching viral SUV challenges online, this moment carried meaning. It promised innovation from a Chinese manufacturer daring to challenge Western dominance in premium SUV engineering. Instead, it became a reminder that heritage, meticulous planning, and proven engineering capability cannot be rushed or faked for social media glory.
The Dragon Challenge Legacy: A Benchmark Chery Should Not Have Underestimated
In 2018, Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport completed what many thought impossible. The Dragon Challenge wasn’t just about driving a vehicle up steep steps. It was about conquering an 11.3-kilometer road with 99 hairpin bends, then tackling 999 steps with gradients reaching 45 to 60 degrees. Each step measured just 30 centimeters in width. The staircase climbs 300 meters vertically, making it a gauntlet of physics, engineering precision, and driver skill.
Ho-Pin Tung, a Le Mans 24-hour winner and Jaguar Formula E racing driver, sat behind the wheel of that Range Rover Sport. This wasn’t an amateur stunt. Land Rover spent months preparing. Their team visited Tianmen Mountain 20 times, collecting data on road friction coefficients, slope changes, and environmental conditions. They built test rigs in the UK to simulate the 45-degree angles. They stress-tested the vehicle in conditions as close to reality as possible before committing to the challenge. The result spoke for itself: 21 minutes and 47 seconds from base to Heaven’s Gate, flawless execution, zero incidents.
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The Range Rover Sport’s success wasn’t luck or marketing spin. It came from the Terrain Response 2 system, a sophisticated technology that automatically adjusts transmission, suspension, and traction settings for extreme terrain. The vehicle’s 5-liter supercharged engine delivered 525 horsepower. Land Rover understood that this challenge demanded not just power, but intelligent power, adaptive systems that could respond to the mountain’s demands in real time. Safety cables weren’t a gimmick either. They represented redundancy, a backup layer protecting against the unexpected.
When Chery Automobile announced their attempt with the Fengyun X3L, they were essentially challenging one of the most famous engineering achievements in automotive history. The Fengyun X3L, launched just two months earlier in September 2025, was essentially a new vehicle untested in extreme conditions at this scale. The company’s confidence bordered on reckless.
The Moment of the Climb: A Step-by-Step Build-Up of Hope and Shock
The Fengyun X3L began its ascent on November 12, 2025, around noon. Tourists gathered to watch. Cameras rolled. Social media feeds primed themselves for content. The initial moments seemed promising. The boxy SUV, styled to evoke Defender-era Land Rover ruggedness, looked the part. Its squared-off proportions, L-shaped LED headlights, and chunky bumper accents projected capability even before it turned a wheel. On paper, the Fengyun X3L had the specs to impress. The dual-motor all-wheel drive variant produced 315 kilowatts of combined power and 505 Nm of torque, enabling a 4.7-second sprint to 100 kilometers per hour.
About three-quarters of the way up the staircase, everything changed. The safety rope’s shackle suddenly detached from its anchor point. This wasn’t a small thing. The metal attachment, designed to secure safety equipment, simply came loose. The rope that was supposed to provide backup traction and security wrapped itself around the Fengyun X3L’s right rear wheel. The contact point cut power to the vehicle at the worst possible moment.
The SUV slowed. Then it hesitated. The crowd’s expressions shifted from excitement to concern. Witnesses later told reporters they heard gasps and shouts of alarm as realization spread through the gathered onlookers. The Fengyun X3L began sliding backward, losing its purchase on the ancient stones. Momentum turned against the vehicle. What had been a climb transformed into an uncontrolled descent. The SUV struck the guardrail with enough force to break through a section of it, damaging a structure that had stood for centuries at this sacred location.
The vehicle came to rest mid-staircase, stranded and damaged. It remained there for two hours before being removed. Tourists who had watched this unfold later described the experience as shocking and surreal. This wasn’t a controlled test that went sideways. This was engineering failure playing out in front of cameras and crowds, leaving visible damage on China’s most iconic tourist site.
The Range Rover Difference: Why One Brand Climbed and The Other Crumbled
The contrast between Land Rover’s 2018 success and Chery’s 2025 failure cuts deep into fundamental differences in automotive engineering philosophy. A Range Rover Sport doesn’t just succeed because it has power. It succeeds because every component of the vehicle serves the challenge. The suspension geometry was engineered for articulation and stability on extreme angles. The weight distribution was calculated to keep the center of gravity optimal at every degree of incline. The tire compound was selected for grip on wet stone.
Land Rover‘s team conducted finite element analysis to stress-test components. They monitored g-forces, suspension travel, and wheel articulation. They understood how a vehicle behaves when pushing boundaries that have never been pushed before. This isn’t theoretical engineering. It’s empirical, relentless preparation meeting world-class execution.
The Fengyun X3L, by contrast, represented a vehicle that was designed, engineered, and tested primarily for conventional driving scenarios. Extended-range hybrid technology is impressive on paper. The 1.5-liter turbocharged engine paired with dual electric motors created genuine performance numbers. But designing a vehicle to handle daily commuting and designing one to climb a 300-meter staircase of ancient stone are fundamentally different challenges. Chery’s engineering team had to have known this, yet the marketing ambition seems to have overridden engineering caution.
The range-extender system worked well in the Fengyun X3L’s everyday testing. The Kunpeng Golden CMS powertrain delivered efficiency and responsiveness for urban and highway driving. The Falcon 500 intelligent driving system provided highway autonomy and parking assistance suitable for modern commuters. These were real strengths. But none of this experience translated to climbing vertical stone steps at dangerous angles.
What really separates the two vehicles, though, is what happened during preparation and planning. Land Rover didn’t just build safety cables and hope for the best. They integrated them as part of the system, understanding how a cable would behave under stress, how it would interact with the vehicle, what would happen if it failed. When the Range Rover Sport’s safety cable snapped during the actual climb at the summit, the vehicle had enough inherent capability to compensate. It reached Heaven’s Gate anyway, because the vehicle itself was capable enough to make up for equipment failure.
The Fengyun X3L had no such redundancy. When the shackle detached, the safety rope became a liability instead of a benefit, wrapping around the wheel and cutting power precisely when continuous power was essential. The vehicle’s engineers hadn’t stress-tested this scenario. They hadn’t anticipated this failure mode because, perhaps, the preparation wasn’t thorough enough. The rush to launch a vehicle and then immediately use it for a marketing stunt on one of the world’s most dangerous tourist sites suggests that engineering rigor took a backseat to marketing ambition.
Chery Automobile acknowledged this in their official statement. They admitted to shortcomings in risk assessment and planning. They recognized that choosing a famous tourist site without sufficiently evaluating potential risks showed negligence in detailed controls. These weren’t abstract criticisms. They were admissions of rushed decision-making at a company level.
Risk, Responsibility, and the Public Backlash Against Chery
The damage to the guardrail wasn’t just physical. It was symbolic. Tianmen Mountain’s staircase is sacred to Chinese culture and heritage. The 999 steps are historically significant, architecturally iconic, and visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. Tourists had to be evacuated. The staircase closed for two days. A location of profound cultural importance became the site of a failed marketing stunt that damaged infrastructure and shook public confidence.
Social media erupted immediately. Chinese internet users flooded platforms with criticism, memes, and angry commentary. The narrative spread globally within hours. Here was a Chinese automaker, trying to prove its capability on a world stage, failing in the most public way possible and damaging cultural heritage in the process. The optics were catastrophic. Chery Automobile wasn’t just failing a test. It was failing to respect the environment and cultural significance of the location it had chosen.
The company’s response included a public apology and a commitment to repair the damaged guardrails completely. They offered an explanation about the detached safety rope shackle, but in the court of public opinion, this felt like deflection. Whether the failure was equipment malfunction, inadequate testing, or poor planning almost didn’t matter anymore. The damage was done. Trust had been broken.
For a brand trying to establish itself as a serious player in the premium and semi-premium SUV market globally, this was a devastating moment. Young drivers who had been curious about Chery’s technology and innovation found themselves watching a company that had prioritized publicity over prudence. The Fengyun X3L’s impressive specifications and affordable pricing suddenly felt less appealing when the vehicle’s first major public test ended in failure and cultural damage.
Global Eyeballs: How India, China, and the World Reacted
The incident went viral across international automotive communities, but the reactions varied significantly by region. In China, the response was overwhelmingly critical. Domestic social media platforms filled with engineers and enthusiasts analyzing the technical failure. Many questioned why Chery had rushed to challenge Land Rover without adequate preparation. Some pointed out that the company had previously attempted the same climb in August 2025 and had to halt due to continuous rain and slippery conditions. Why would they attempt again just a few months later with a vehicle that was literally just launched?
Indian automotive enthusiasts and journalists followed the story closely, partly because Indian manufacturers have their own ambitions in premium SUV segments. The Fengyun X3L failure became a cautionary tale about the risks of aggressive marketing campaigns that prioritize headlines over engineering discipline. Several Indian auto reviewers referenced the incident when discussing the difference between Chinese automotive ambition and Western automotive heritage and caution.
In Europe and North America, the incident was covered as a curiosity and a commentary on the gap between emerging market engineering and established luxury brands. Many reviewers noted that while the Fengyun X3L had impressive performance numbers on paper, the real-world test had exposed limitations in systems integration, planning, and preparation. The incident became fodder for automotive forums and social media, with users comparing the Range Rover Sport’s flawless 2018 execution to Chery’s public failure.
The meme culture around the incident was relentless. Comparisons flooded Reddit’s r/cars, YouTube comments, and Chinese social media platforms. The image of the Fengyun X3L sliding backward and hitting the guardrail became iconic in a negative way. It represented the gap between ambition and execution, between marketing promises and engineering reality. One frequently circulated comparison showed the Range Rover Sport’s confident ascent side-by-side with the Fengyun X3L’s backward slide, with captions implying that Chinese engineering had failed to match Western premium brands.
Closing Reflection: The Thin Line Between Bold Innovation and Blind Overconfidence
The Chery Automobile stunt failure reveals something uncomfortable about the relationship between emerging market manufacturers and Western premium brands. It’s tempting to see the incident as a simple story of Chinese ambition meeting engineering reality. That narrative is too simple and somewhat patronizing. Chery makes genuinely capable vehicles. The Fengyun X3L has real engineering merit. The problem wasn’t that the vehicle was inadequate. The problem was that the company confused marketing ambition with engineering readiness.
Range Rover earned legendary status through generations of vehicles tested in genuine adventure and authentic capability development. The Dragon Challenge worked because it represented the culmination of decades of engineering development, not the first public test of a brand-new vehicle. Land Rover didn’t rush to Tianmen Mountain to prove a point. They came when they were certain they could succeed, and they dedicated months to preparation. That discipline is what separates heritage brands from rising competitors.
For younger drivers and global automotive enthusiasts, this moment carries an important lesson. Specs on paper don’t translate to real-world capability without systems integration, testing depth, and preparation rigor. A vehicle that can accelerate from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 4.7 seconds doesn’t automatically mean it can climb a 300-meter staircase at 45-degree angles. Performance is a system, not a number. Capability comes from understanding how every component interacts under extreme stress, not from adding up horsepower figures.
Chery Automobile clearly understands this at some level, as evidenced by their detailed apology that specifically mentioned shortcomings in risk assessment and planning. The company admitted failures in decision-making, which suggests internal awareness that the stunt was premature. Going forward, if Chery wants to challenge global premium brands, the path isn’t through marketing stunts. It’s through patient, methodical engineering development, real-world testing, and building reputation through consistent delivery of quality and capability.
Competitors and Market Positioning: Where the Fengyun X3L Fits
The Fengyun X3L operates in a surprisingly competitive segment where Chinese innovation directly challenges Western premium positioning. The vehicle starts at approximately 109,900 Chinese yuan after trade-in incentives, roughly equivalent to 15,500 US dollars. This price point puts it in direct competition with several established names in the compact SUV category, and the vehicle’s engineering approach is genuinely interesting.
Consider the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, a plug-in hybrid compact SUV that costs roughly twice the Fengyun X3L’s base price in global markets. The Wrangler 4xe delivers proven capability inherited from generations of Jeep engineering. It has immense cultural cachet among adventure seekers and a reputation for genuine off-road performance. However, it offers less interior space, less technology integration, and significantly lower efficiency. The Wrangler driver pays for heritage and brand prestige as much as for capability. The Fengyun X3L driver gets more technology, more interior room, and superior efficiency at a fraction of the cost. Where the Wrangler wins is in real-world reliability data, service network depth, and proven durability. These are advantages that matter for long-term ownership satisfaction.
Compare this to the BMW X1 or Mercedes GLA, both premium compact SUVs positioned around 45,000 to 55,000 dollars globally. These vehicles offer sophisticated technology, refined driving dynamics, and premium brand recognition. Yet they compromise on ground clearance, approach angles, and genuine off-road capability compared to the Fengyun X3L. The BMW and Mercedes excel in urban environments and highway comfort. The Fengyun X3L prioritizes versatility, offering advanced off-road features through its nine driving modes and higher departure angles than luxury competitors. The trade-off is interior prestige and brand heritage. A young driver choosing between these vehicles is essentially deciding between established luxury brand prestige or genuine capability at a lower price point.
The most direct competitor remains the BYD Yuan Plus (also marketed as the Song Plus EV), another Chinese-manufactured electric SUV with comparable pricing and technology integration. The Yuan Plus offers pure electric driving with a larger battery capacity, making it ideal for urban commuters focused on low operating costs. The Fengyun X3L’s extended-range hybrid approach offers greater flexibility, particularly for drivers concerned about charging infrastructure or long-distance travel. The Yuan Plus prioritizes environmental efficiency and lower operating costs. The Fengyun X3L balances efficiency with genuine off-road capability and longer-range flexibility.
For younger drivers in India and Southeast Asia, where these vehicles are increasingly available through imports or future local manufacturing, the Fengyun X3L represents genuine value. For approximately one-third to one-half the cost of comparable premium compact SUVs from Western brands, drivers get comparable technology, superior capability, and more interior space. The trade-off is accepting brand risk and potential service infrastructure limitations in markets outside China. The failed Tianmen Mountain stunt, unfortunately, amplifies these brand concerns in new markets.
However, it’s worth noting that Chery’s decision to manufacture the Fengyun X3L using aircraft-grade aluminum alloy and some of the same production techniques as Land Rover vehicles suggests serious engineering commitment. The vehicle represents more than just marketing ambition. It represents genuine effort to compete at premium levels through superior engineering and value proposition rather than through brand heritage alone.
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FAQs About the Stunt, the Fengyun X3L, and Chery Automobile’s Role
Why did Chery attempt to recreate the Range Rover Dragon Challenge?
Chery Automobile’s motivation was straightforward from a marketing perspective. The Fengyun X3L was a new vehicle with impressive specifications, launching just weeks before the planned stunt. By replicating the famous Dragon Challenge, Chery hoped to generate massive publicity, position the X3L as a serious off-road SUV capable of competing with premium global brands, and create viral content that would resonate with younger drivers interested in capability and performance. The strategy assumed the vehicle could deliver the results. It didn’t account for the complexity of execution or the stakes of attempting the world’s most famous automotive stunt without adequate preparation.
What exactly was the safety rope malfunction?
According to Chery’s investigation, a metal shackle (the attachment point connecting the safety rope to its anchor) unexpectedly detached from the anchor point on the vehicle’s test rig. Once detached, the rope wrapped around the Fengyun X3L’s right rear wheel. This contact point cut power delivery to the wheel, compromising the vehicle’s traction and power output at the precise moment when continuous power was essential to maintain forward momentum on the steep stairs. The vehicle could not overcome the power loss and began sliding backward.
Was anyone injured in the incident?
No. Fortunately, despite the dramatic nature of the incident, no tourists or personnel were injured. The guardrails absorbed the impact and prevented the vehicle from sliding further down the staircase. Two hours of careful planning and recovery work then removed the vehicle safely. The lack of injuries was fortunate rather than the result of safety planning, since tourists had been watching from nearby and could have been at risk if the vehicle had continued sliding or if other components had failed.
Why couldn’t the Fengyun X3L make it when the Range Rover Sport did?
Multiple factors contributed to the different outcomes. First, the Range Rover Sport had 525 horsepower from a 5-liter supercharged engine, compared to the Fengyun X3L’s 315 kilowatts (422 horsepower) from a hybrid system. More importantly, Land Rover’s vehicle was driven by a professional racing driver, Ho-Pin Tung, who had trained extensively for the challenge. The Range Rover Sport also benefited from 20 prior site visits, extensive data collection, engineering simulations, and meticulous preparation. When the Range Rover Sport’s safety cable snapped, the vehicle had enough inherent capability to compensate. The Fengyun X3L, lacking both the power reserve and the preparation depth, had no margin for error.
What does this mean for the Chery Fengyun X3L as a vehicle?
The stunt’s failure doesn’t diminish the Fengyun X3L’s legitimate engineering achievements. The vehicle features an all-aluminum body manufactured on the same production line as Jaguar Land Rover vehicles, providing structural integrity and weight efficiency. The extended-range hybrid powertrain delivers impressive performance and efficiency. The Falcon 500 intelligent driving system offers modern autonomous features. For urban commuting, daily driving, and conventional off-roading, the Fengyun X3L remains a capable, affordable SUV with genuine strengths. The stunt failure reflects poor decision-making at the company level, not necessarily fundamental vehicle inadequacy. However, it does raise questions about real-world reliability and the gap between marketing claims and actual performance testing.
Could the Fengyun X3L succeed at the Dragon Challenge with better preparation?
Theoretically, possibly, but probably not in the form it currently exists. The Fengyun X3L would need significant engineering modifications, more powerful engines or hybrid systems, expert driver training, and months of preparation similar to what Land Rover conducted. Even then, the 100-meter power disadvantage compared to the Range Rover Sport would remain a fundamental limitation. More importantly, there’s no practical reason for Chery to attempt this. The incident already damaged the brand’s credibility. Any future attempt would face skepticism and heightened scrutiny. The cost-benefit analysis of another stunt attempt would be deeply unfavorable.
How has this affected Chery Automobile’s global reputation?
In the short term, the incident damaged trust, particularly in markets where premium positioning and engineering reliability are valued. Globally, Chery is now associated with a high-profile failure rather than the innovative ambition the company was attempting to showcase. However, the automotive industry has a short memory for incidents not involving injury or death. How Chery responds matters more than the failure itself. If the company addresses the underlying issues in its planning and risk assessment processes, invests in genuine engineering development, and focuses on building reputation through execution rather than marketing stunts, it can recover. The reputation damage is real but not permanent unless the company repeats similar mistakes.
