2026 GWM Tank 300 Ultra PHEV review: Australian first drive

The GWM Tank 300 has gone on a wild journey of growth in the three short years since it arrived in Australia in 2023.

First there was petrol power, then hybrid, most recently diesel and now this, the Hi4-T plug-in hybrid.

The Chinese brand’s small off-road warrior has just taken on Beer O’Clock Hill and won, so is it time to say goodbye to your diesel fourbie and splash the cash on this?

It is GWM’s third plug-in model and, in the car maker’s words and not mine, is just as capable, if not better than the diesel.

Is it, though?

The plug-in hybrid sits at the top of the Tank 300 range.

Like the petrol, regular hybrid and diesel, it comes in two forms: the base Lux and top-spec Ultra.

I had the Ultra to test for the week, which costs $59,990, while the Lux costs $55,990, both drive-away.

The Ultra diesel, in comparison, is $52,990 drive-away.

The only added option on this test car was premium Pearl White paint for $595 extra.

At the launch of this vehicle, while not explicitly saying “buy this and not the diesel”, GWM was heavily pushing the PHEV as the one it wants you to spend your money on.

So convinced is the brand that this is the winner, it has temporarily doubled production of it and is gradually phasing out the regular hybrid version.

Standard specification mirrors the other models’ Ultra variants, featuring dual 12.3-inch screens for the infotainment and driver’s display, a nine-speaker sound system, and swanky nappa leather seats that are powered, heated and cooled in the front. 

The GWM Tank 300 doesn’t compete with much in terms of size, powertrain or price, but rivals include the new Denza B5 plug-in hybrid, as well as the Toyota LandCruiser Prado and Jeep Wrangler.

The Denza is the closest match, as the Prado and Wrangler are significantly pricier.

From the outside, the Tank 300 PHEV looks the same as the other versions, retaining the model’s boxy shape and its incredibly robust side steps and wheel arch flares.

The white paint doesn’t really do it justice. Perhaps the new Sundrift Sand would be more interesting and a little less fridge-like. Apparently, it’s Australia-inspired, perhaps, dare I say it, Sandy Taupe-inspired?

Inside is a complicated story.

Firstly, this is the 'old' interior. GWM has launched a facelift of this car in China, featuring a new interior with a larger 14.6-inch infotainment screen running its new Coffee 3.0 operating system, and a revamped centre console with a second wireless charger.

Why aren’t we getting it, you ask? The new layout involves moving the gear shifter to the steering column, and apparently local feedback suggests this would “not be ideal” for off-roading.

So, for now, we keep the dual 12.3-inch screens and traditional shifter. I don’t actually know if that’s a bad thing, though. The shifter is instinctive, and the screens integrate into the dashboard really nicely, seem fairly responsive to input, and the picture quality is already pretty good.

GWM describes the Tank 300 as having a “luxurious cabin … with serious off-road muscle”. The second part might be true (more on that in a second), but I’m not so sure about the first part.

The nappa leather seats are padded and comfortable, but otherwise, the 'luxury' is limited to a plastic section of the dash that is incredibly chintzy.

The rest of the interior is quite rugged: there’s a chunky bar to hold onto on the lower part of the dash, plenty of hard buttons and dials, and bolt-on-style grab handles on the doors.

Frustratingly, you won’t find a grab handle above your head to hang onto while getting in on the driver’s side, only on the passenger’s. I understand that this would be a left-to-right-hand-drive conversion issue, but it’s a miss for practicality.

As is the fact that none of the doors shut properly. You need to really put some weight into it or they won’t fully close. They do open widely, though, so it’s not all bad news.

There’s a lot of leg and head room in the back row, and the slope of the rear seats provides nice under-thigh support for second-row passengers, but overall, the GWM Tank 300 is not as big as it looks from the outside. Kind of like a reverse TARDIS. 

It’s nowhere near as petite as the Suzuki Jimny, though, and you could still consider it a family car. There are ISOFIX anchors on the outboard seats, and all three rear positions have top-tether points for child restraints.

In the plug-in hybrid, GWM has raised the floor to accommodate the battery pack, resulting in a smaller boot. It’s a lot less space than you’ll find in the Denza B5 (470L) and 40L less than in the Tank 300 diesel. It totals 360 litres with the seats up, and 1520L with them down

The five-seat off-roader is covered by a five-star ANCAP rating awarded in 2022. It includes all variants, mentioning the petrol, diesel and hybrid, but doesn’t specifically refer to the plug-in hybrid.

We’ve asked GWM and will update this review when we receive a response.

It has seven airbags, front, rear, and side cameras, as well as sensors, traffic sign recognition, a blind-spot monitor, driver attention and fatigue detection, lane-assistance technology, and more.

In response to customer feedback, GWM has refined the Tank 300’s adaptive cruise control, improving the distance settings and enabling 1km/h adjustments.

Not all the safety tech has been improved, though. Speed sign recognition is almost always wrong, the indicators don’t self-cancel (a common GWM problem), and the driver attention monitor’s nagging is incessant.

The monitor can, however, be turned off, and it will stay off until you manually turn it back on, rather than only for the duration of the journey. That’s a massive win for your sanity.

The fatigue warning still goes off regardless, but I don’t mind that so much, as it’s only triggered occasionally and usually only by a genuine sign of tiredness, such as a yawn.

You’ll also find the emergency lane-keep assist fights against you when trying to change lanes, even while indicating or doing it slowly, which is awkward and unnerving.

In theory, the GWM Tank 300 PHEV’s greatest strength is that it’s good on fuel, and crucially right now, cheaper to run than a diesel because you can plug it in or run it on 91RON. 

That’s the motivation to get out of the diesel and jump into this, right?

The 37kWh battery is supposedly good for 115km of pure-electric range, but according to the more lenient NEDC standard, it offers a total driving range of 955km once you chuck in the petrol.

Fuel consumption is rated at 1.9 litres per 100 kilometres overall, but 8.3L/100km once the charge has run out and it switches to hybrid power.

On average, I found I could get close to the hybrid claim, achieving 8.4L/100km over the week, but the lowest number I got was 4.2 – a long way from 1.9, and it was hard to drive on electric power only.

Much of the week was spent on the freeway, although there was also a fair bit of town driving, and a couple of hours spent off the beaten track at Bunyip State Park.

The battery seems to drain quickly, and EV mode is only available when it’s smooth sailing. If you need to put your foot down, it will fall back on the engine for help.

GWM claims it can be charged from 30 to 80 per cent in 24 minutes, from 15 to 100 per cent in six hours using a 7kW wall charger, or in 14.4 hours at 2kW.

Using a three-pin home outlet and letting our solar panels do the heavy lifting, I was able to top up the battery from 14 to 40 per cent in six hours during the day.

The Tank 300 also has two 6kW internal plug sockets for vehicle-to-load (V2L), but you can’t use both at the same time.

The PHEV is powered by the same 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine as the petrol and hybrid versions, but backed by a 120kW/400Nm electric motor.

It’s the most powerful Tank 300 going, with a combined 300kW on tap and almost double the torque of the diesel, with 750Nm versus the diesel’s 480Nm.

Like the diesel, the PHEV gets GWM’s nine-speed torque-converter automatic transmission, with selectable four-wheel drive and low-range.

On the bitumen, everything is sent to the rear wheels, while in four-high, torque is split 50-50 between the front and rear axles. You shouldn’t use this until you leave sealed roads, though. GWM is very insistent on that.

In EV mode, it’s very quiet aside from the space-age pedestrian warning sound it makes at low speeds, and even when you do need to push the throttle, and the engine comes into play, it isn’t loud.

On paper, this plug-in Tank is supposed to be capable of 0–100km/h in just 6.3 seconds. When it gets going, it certainly packs a punch, but the power is delivered neither smoothly nor consistently. 

If you’re just cruising around at low speeds, it’s smooth enough, but the hand-off between electric and petrol is not clean, and it really hesitates before bringing the engine in to propel you forward as if it isn’t quite sure what you want, despite putting your foot flat to the floor. 

Equally, the brake pedal is quite soft, so stopping its 2615kg kerb weight is not a task you’ll want to leave to the last second.

The gearbox isn’t sure of itself either. It can be jerky and indecisive about which gear it wants to be in, which is a problem both on and off-road. 

It will noticeably drop into first at very low revs with a shunt, which is not ideal when you’re trying to traverse big ruts smoothly, while at other times it holds the gears too much and revs high. It feels like it doesn’t have the low-down torque, so it has to drop a gear.

The ride, like in the diesel, is quite firm over sharp bumps and thuds uncomfortably when hitting expansion joints, though large potholes and speed bumps are handled with ease. 

Even when on a straight road, though, there is a jitteriness that never entirely disappears, as if it is tapping its foot constantly.

The stiffness in the ride is the trade-off for a higher payload and towing capacity than earlier models. This Tank can haul 3000kg braked and 750kg unbraked, with a payload of 690kg. 

The suspension – independent double-wishbone front and live-axle rear with coil springs on all four corners – has been tuned locally by Rob Trubiani, the former top Holden engineer.

This is evident when you head off the tarmac and into the bush, where the Tank 300 is in its element. It’s perfectly comfortable on gravel, and even deeply rutted tracks give it no trouble.

The body is well controlled and not wallowy, but I’d like to see more direct steering. In all settings except Sport, it is too light, and even then it just has a touch more weight than before. It’s not necessarily any more capable.

Even on road tyres (in this case, Michelin Primacy SUV rubber covering the 18-inch wheels) with no air taken out of them, it made tackling steep ascents and descents a breeze, with limited slip in mud too.

For when the going gets really tricky, the Ultra has both front and rear diff locks. On our travels, we used the rear lock once, and even then it wasn’t strictly necessary.

The Tank 300 has a bevy of off-road modes: Rock, Snow, Mud, Mountain and even Expert – but you can’t engage any of them unless you’re in four-low, which seems odd.

Towing on this occasion wasn’t possible, but according to GWM the PHEV has a "towing mode checklist" function that helps ensure you’ve completed all the required tasks before you set off with a caravan or trailer on the back.

All the things we at Drive love about the GWM Tank 300 still hold true with the plug-in hybrid.

The towing capacity is good, it’s excellent off-road, and its boxy looks are fun.

But the compromises, as Sam Purcell has previously found in the diesel, also remain here.

There’s real room for improvement with the suspension, steering and throttle calibration, and it’s not as big as you’d think it is on the inside.

Basically, it’s very similar to the diesel, but it uses less fuel. Even though it’s a few grand more expensive to get into, the PHEV pays for itself after a couple of years, so if diesel prices don’t drop, it might be the smarter choice.

A born-and-bred newshound, Kathryn has worked her way up through the ranks reporting for, and later editing, two renowned UK regional newspapers and websites, before moving on to join the digital newsdesk of one of the world’s most popular newspapers – The Sun. More recently, she’s done a short stint in PR in the not-for-profit sector, and led the news team at Wheels Media.

Read more about Kathryn Fisk