This new ute should worry Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux

MG has already made its mark on the small car and SUV market, surging up the sales charts with its cut-price alternatives to the establishment.

Now it’s set to do the same thing to the ute market, confirming that it will enter the highly-competitive dual-cab segment in the near-future. It’s part of MG’s target to become a top three selling brand in Australia and local CEO, Peter Ciao, has made it clear to his bosses that a ute is necessary to achieve that goal.

“I went back to China, I chatted with the chairman and I said ‘you expect me [to get] better [and] better, but I told you in Australia, without a ute you can’t achieve the top three,’” Ciao said.

While MG already has a ute on sale in some markets in south-east Asia, the MG Extender, this is based on the LDV T60. LDV is also part of MG’s parent brand SAIC Motors, the government-owned automotive giant, and therefore it’s likely the two companies can share resources to help shortcut MG’s learning curve.

“LDV and MG both belong to SAIC Motors 100 percent. We will share lots of product resource. But MG Ute will focus on how to fit the MG type of customer,” Ciao said.

SAIC also has experience with a variety of powertrain technologies, so MG will be able to consider a variety of choices for its upcoming ute including petrol, diesel, hybrid or even going fully electric.

Ciao explained: “You will find that SAIC Motors, the whole group, we have all the tech solutions… [Someone] said, ‘why are we building Cyberster?’ We just show we have this ability building supercar. So on the ute, what kind of tech? We can do everything, we can do everything already.”

As for the question of timing, Akshat Ahuja, head of product for MG Australia, made it clear the program won’t be rushed, but the company wants it as soon as possible to cash-in on the booming ute market.

“We would love to have a ute tomorrow, right? But good things take time,” Ahuja said. “So, all I can tell you is we have been working really hard on it. From our side, we are trying to make it as early as possible. Then again, there’s a process. We also don’t want to take shortcuts, right? We just want to make sure that we provide a good quality, well-tested product in the market, but also not take too long.”