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It’s not often that a week goes by without some story on the web about another potential electric ute coming to Australia. So far, we have the laughably expensive LDV eT60 on sale here and that’s about it. But a number of other manufacturers are, apparently, eyeing up the market with a view to offering electric products.
But will Australians by electric utes? Do they represent a practical alternative to internal combustion engined products for consumers?
Firstly, let’s dispel the myth that the Tesla Cybertruck is coming to Australia. Whilst there’s clearly a considerable market for right-hand drive (RHD) versions of the Tesla Model 3 and the Y around the world, there’s so little RHD demand for the Model S and X that they’ve been dropped.
The only potential RHD market for the Cybertruck would be Australia and, given it’s size is very close to a Ford F-150, the market would maybe reach a couple of thousand a year at best. I really don’t see Tesla bothering with RHD production.
READ MORE: 2023 Ford F-150 new car review
Apart from a handful in New Zealand and South Africa, there is no other market anywhere for RHD full size pickups, regardless of power unit. As regards the other American products in this sector, I don’t see Rivian showing any lasting interest in making RHD vehicles for the same reasons.
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That leaves the Big Three with their electric offerings. Whilst Ram, Ford and Chevrolet all offer converted RHD versions of their internal combustion powered full-size pickups here, with great success to date in the case of the Ram and Chevy, none of them have actually confirmed if and when they’ll offer electric trucks here. And Ford, with the F-150 Lightning, is already finding that the purchasing proposition for an electric ute is nowhere near as compelling at the moment in their home market as they’d hoped, with vehicles stacked up in dealer lots and large discounts available, despite very modest production numbers to date.
COMING SOON: Ram’s electric Toyota HiLux rival
The compromises that are required in terms of range vs useability and towing capacity are simply limiting the market for the electric alternative in the US. In my view, this would also be the case here, maybe even to a greater extent, given the importance that the average buyer places on towing and overall load capacities in Australia.
Don’t misunderstand me, both the Cybertruck and the Rivian will sell in appreciable numbers in the US, subject to supply constraints, because they’ll appeal to the ‘making a statement’ buyer who has multiple vehicles and also probably isn’t looking for as rugged a truck as the average Yellowstone cowboy.
But here in Australia, the whole full-size segment is a niche one where much of the reasoning for buying what is a very large vehicle in this market is for towing capacity and that overall payload. Throw in managing range issues once away from urban conurbations and the full size ute electric market pretty much disappears for the foreseeable future.
READ MORE: Ford F-150 Lightning review
Oh, and don’t ask about cold weather performance!
Do the sums. Start off with an electric F-150 Lightning and a theoretical 500km range, less 250km as you’re towing a 3000 kg race car trailer, then less 30 per cent as it’s five-degrees celsius today and you won’t get from Melbourne to Winton Raceway, let alone home again.
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So, what of the main ute sector where the big numbers are sold in this market? The Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux, Volkswagen Amarok, etc segment? Well, that’s where the LDV eT60 sits as the only OEM electric offering at the moment. And, truth be told, not only is the vehicle itself nothing to write home about at any level, it also retails for an astonishing $93,000. That’s double the price of an internal combustion powered LDV ute.
As of the end of September, an unimpressive 64 units of the eT60 had been registered here in 2023. Meanwhile, 6,700 of the ICE powered T60s were moved in the same period. I wonder how many demonstrators were amongst those 64 registrations…
There is the potential for both mining companies and also other businesses looking to reduce their carbon footprints to buy a realistically priced standard size ute. But such a ute will need to be an awful lot better, and an awful lot cheaper, than the eT60 to even sell in any numbers to that specialised part of the market.
I don’t believe that there’s a chance of seeing any real quantities of full electric utes being sold until one of the major Japanese or Korean manufacturers offers something far more compelling, and there’s simply not even a twinkle of that at the moment.
However, what I do see is a hybrid market developing as quickly as manufacturers can get product to market. I’m talking plug-in hybrids with a decent all electric range of 50km or so. With the seemingly ever increasing price of fuel, there’s massive opportunity for someone to come here with the right product at the right price.
And yet, Toyota are talking about a non-plug in hybrid version of the HiLux for 2024 but with really not much more that an outsize starter motor with the potential for a 10 per cent fuel saving. So what? Missed opportunity.
Meanwhile, Ford have announced that they’ll bring a plug-in hybrid version of the Ranger (with 45-50 km electric range) here in 2025. But it has a petrol engine! This segment is dominated by diesels for good reason. They’re hugely more economical in real time everyday driving, and normally more durable. Literally, 90 per cent of the utes sold here have diesel engines.
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So, instead of grasping the opportunity to lead the way with a decent PHEV diesel 4×4, Ford will miss the mark I’m afraid. And Toyota too.
In this country, with the expectations of the average Australian ute buyer, I simply don’t see a mainstream market for an electric ute (apart from the mining sector) in the foreseeable future. But I do see a ready-made market for a great, well-priced, diesel ute with plug-in hybrid capability and a 50km range. That’s enough range for plenty of local driving purely on, say, a 15kw battery, that could not only be very easily and cheaply charged up overnight at home using a 10amp socket, but also could be a great power source on site for tools etc during a working day or away in the bush.
READ MORE: 2025 Ford Ranger hybrid revealed
The 2025 Ranger is almost that vehicle… except for the petrol engine! Madness.
Maybe Kia will be the ones to get it right. They’ve made no secret recently of their upcoming move into the ute market in Australia. They also know how to make diesel engines and they’ve shown, between themselves and their Hyundai cousins, that they’re more than willing to adopt whichever technology is appropriate to a given market, be that ICE, PHEV or full EV.
In these times of huge transition as automotive technology develops at the fastest rate for a hundred years, more and more product planning mistakes are being made. But it’s also a time of opportunity for the ones who get it right.
In this part of the market, my money is on the Koreans.
Wow Roland still bitter about not being the main Ford team back in the day. And what is your obsession with diesel? It’s a dirty fuel and hard to meet emissions standards and at current prices at $2.20 a litre very expensive compared to petrol, which I filled up the other day for $1.80. Do the math, even with the fuel savings per km diesel is becoming less attractive or economical. So Ford going with a petrol hybrid makes sense. Less diesel utes the better, but maybe you don’t care about pollution. And you talk about the success of the Ram and Chev utes? Based on sales April 2023 the Ranger and Hilux sold over 12000-13000 units each, the Ram sold about 1600 and the Chev sold 400! How is that a massive success for Ram And Chev? Chev make up less than 2% of the ute market in Australia? On the F150 lightening off course there would be a drop off in sales once the initial novelty wore off. It’s still selling so it ain’t going away. It will build a base over time like Tesla. I do agree with you regarding the LDV, but people who are buying the internal combustion engine version are doing so for the price and you get what you pay for. Ford have made the right decision with the new Ranger hybrid going petrol. Based on drives I’ve had with a RAV4 hybrid petrol, It’s cleaner, cheaper to run and the roar of a petrol engine is way better than a diesel. Ease up on Ford, remember the good times you had with them, build a bridge and get over it.
While I agree with your sentiments on petrol re diesel for the most part, when it comes to towing diesel is better and get into the outback and some servo’s don’t sell petrol. Also run out of fuel on one of the desert crossings and you will be waiting for a while for someone to come along with petrol on board.
Yeah but how many utes actually go out back? I have a diesel utes and go outback and twice have got dirty fuel from those service stations. Most utes are bought buy tradies who don’t go outback so why have diesel? Towing yes diesel is better but again how many tradies actually tow anything
I’d like an electric ute, perhaps a Silverado if they are ever sold here, however as a renter having the charging infrastructure isn’t easy and I don’t want to wait to charge at a charging station. I think that now with 1/3 of all properties being owned by investors this will be an issue for roughly 1/3 of the population.
Not quite right. You can charge off a 10A power point. If overnight charging is about 12 hours, that’s about 28kWh which equates to 150km of range. You’ll rarely do more than that on any single day.
The real issue is no off street parking which affects renters and owner occupiers.
The stumbling blocks for large uptake of EV’s for large utes and 4WD vehicles will always be the range for towing and lack of charge stations in the outback.
The only answer I can see for the foreseeable future is copy the model used in the heavy Edison truck, which has a small ICE engine with a generator that can charge the batteries 2-3 times faster than you can use them.
Do the sums and this works out cheaper to run and better for the environment than many of the Hybrids.