GWM Haval to attack Toyota RAV4 and Mazda CX-5 in 2025

A ruggedly styled new medium SUV with more off-road bark than bite will arrive locally in the third quarter of 2025 as part of a concerted attempt by GWM Australia to lever buyers away from the top-selling Toyota RAV4 and Mazda CX-5.

The GWM Haval H7, a five-door five-seat SUV known as the Big Dog in China, shares its core architecture with GWM’s medium segment staple, the Haval H6, which is also being overhauled in Australia this year.

They will form a combined attack on the medium segment – where GWM currently lags – as part of the brand’s target of more than 50,000 overall sales in 2025, eventually building to 70,000-plus sales and a permanent place in the top five sellers in Australia.

“We are going to have to grow and we are going to have to conquest from other brands,” GWM Australia marketing and communications chief Steve Maciver confirmed.

“That is how we have got to where we have got to, we have been doing that. These cars are going to continue doing that for us as well.

“In mid-size SUV people seem to be welded to the more established brands and we have to find a way to cut through and get our share in that segment as well.

“We are going to put our best foot forward with the product. We are going to market it heavily. We find when we put bums on seats our conversion rate are very, very high.”

Despite its off-roader styling, the H7 has only been confirmed for Australia with a front-wheel drive, 1.5-litre petrol-electric hybrid powertrain.

No all-wheel drive hybrid is currently available, as per global GWM Haval powertrain structure.

A 2.0-litre turbo-petrol H7 homologated for Australia and offered in both front- and all-wheel drive in South Africa – where the global-market second-generation H7 [there’s an entirely different H7 in China] debuted in January – is unlikely to come here due to NVES considerations.

In South Africa, the 179kW/530Nm hybrid 4x2 is priced from the equivalent of $63,800 and sits above the H6 hybrid on pricing.

That’s a pricing structure likely to be replicated in Australia. It essentially means the H7 will provide incremental sales assistance while the H6 continues to do the heavy lifting.

A plug-in hybrid AWD powertrain is not on the agenda for the Australian H7 at the moment.

“The [H7’s] architecture is pretty much the same as the H6,” said Maciver.

“[It has] more rugged styling and a couple more off-road features than the H6.

“This offers us another option in the mid-size segment.

“It comes back to that strategy of choice, offering customers something a little bit different in that mid-size segment. That’s going to be an option for them as well.”

The H6 line-up will be overhauled with new petrol and front-drive hybrid models arriving in Q2, and all-wheel drive and plug-in hybrid powertrains in Q4.

They will follow on from the recent launch of the H6 GT PHEV.

In 2024, the H6 was the eighth best-selling medium SUV in Australia.

But its 8973 sales were dwarfed by the 58,178 sales recorded by the segment-leading Toyota RAV4, which more than doubled the 27,613 sales reported by the segment runner-up, the Mitsubishi Outlander.

Other models ahead of the H6 in 2024 included the Mazda CX-5, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson and Nissan X-Trail.

All up, medium SUVs accounted for 230,367 sales in 2024, pipping the combined ute 4x2 and 4x4 segments as Australia’s most popular.

Maciver outlined a three-pronged strategy for GWM Haval in the medium SUV segment.

“You’ve got your traditional family SUV [H6], which is space, efficiency, value, tech and all that stuff in there.

“H6 GT PHEV sits above that as a performance family SUV – don’t forget it’s 0-100km/h in 4.9 seconds on that car.

“Then, sitting off to the side there but still within the segment you’ve got a more rugged option [H7] off this platform, but again something for consumers who want to drive something a bit different.”

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