Chery Stockman hybrid ute demand explodes

Chery Australia’s diesel plug-in hybrid dual-cab has quietly become one of the most in-demand utes in the country before anyone outside the company has driven it.

Registrations of interest for the 2026 Chery Stockman now sitting at roughly 10,000 and pre-orders nudging 2000 – double the tally reported just two months ago.

Chery hasn’t officially opened its order books yet, with every one of those pre-orders from a punter who’s wandered into a dealership and asked to have their name scribbled down, sight unseen, price unknown.

The Chery Stockman ute could just be the hottest ute to launch in 2026… that is if the launch doesn’t push into 2027. 

Chery Motor Australia chief operating officer Lucas Harris gave carsales the latest numbers, and they’re hefty.

“We’re sitting just on 10,000 registrations of interest. And the pre-orders are now pushing 2000,” he told carsales at the 2026 Everything Electric Sydney show.

“But all the pre-orders to date are just customers walking into dealerships saying, ‘Can I get my name on one?’"

That process is about to get officially certified – and more trackable – as Harris explained.

“We’re about to launch on October 1st our formal pre-order system on our website, and then we’ll get a real idea, and we’ll have some pre-order incentive to encourage people to put their names down,” Harris said.

It remains to be seen what that incentive is but other Chinese brands sometimes offer 6kW wall box chargers and so forth to incentivise new models.

Those customers who have already meandered into showrooms and plonked down their cash are also being advised to register with the official system to benefit.

“And obviously all those people that already put in an order with dealers, we’ll have to get them onto the system so they don’t miss out,” said Harris.

So what are they queueing for? The Stockman pairs a 2.5-litre turbo-diesel with plug-in hybrid hardware – a world first for a dual-cab – for a combined 350kW and 800Nm.

That’s 100Nm clear of the BYD Shark 6 Performance and 50kW/50Nm up on the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV. It’s understood (but not yet confirmed) the battery pack will be at least 30kWh – good for a claimed 100km of electric-only running on the generous NEDC cycle.

Call it 70-80km in the real world and you won’t be disappointed.

Underneath, it’s conventional where it counts: double wishbones up front, leaf springs out back, 4x4, 247mm of ground clearance and 3500kg braked (750kg unbraked) towing.

It’s also a big unit. The Stockman measures 5450mm long, 2010mm wide and 1890mm tall on a 3250mm wheelbase, with a tub spanning 1560mm long, 1560mm wide and 500mm deep.

Line it up against the Toyota HiLux double-cab pick-up – 5320mm long, up to 1885mm wide, 1865mm tall, 3085mm wheelbase – and the Chery is 130mm longer, 125mm wider and rides on a wheelbase 165mm longer.

It’s taller too and clears obstacles by 23mm more than the HiLux SR5’s 224mm.

Whether it drives like it belongs here is the bit that matters, which is why Chery has enlisted Premcar – the Melbourne outfit behind Nissan’s Warrior program and the Mitsubishi Triton Raider – to test and validate the Stockman on Australian roads. 

“Australia is one of the world’s most demanding ute markets, and we know our customers expect a vehicle that performs confidently across everything from urban streets to highways, construction sites and remote off-road tracks,” Harris previously said.

Premcar CEO Bernie Quinn reckons the Chinese car-maker has done the homework too.

“Chery has created very specific attributes for the Stockman’s ride and handling, and we are very pleased to help them test and validate their work in a variety of Australian conditions,” he said.

The formal pre-order portal opens October 1, and that’s when Chery will find out how much of this interest is genuine intent and how much is idle curiosity. A sweetener is coming for early birds, and it sounds as though dealer-lodged orders will be migrated across so nobody loses their place in the queue.

The 2026 Chery Stockman is still slated for Australian showrooms in the fourth quarter of this year, with pricing, grades and final specs to be confirmed closer to launch.

A petrol plug-in hybrid version is said to follow in 2027 and a cab-chassis remains firmly in the ‘not confirmed yet’ basket despite plenty of fleet noise.

If Chery converts even half those registrations, the Stockman won’t just be a curiosity – it’ll be a serious disruptor for the establishment, just like the BYD Shark 6 was.

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