JAC Hunter X PHEV 2026 Review

The headline act here is the price. The JAC Hunter PHEV starts at under $50,000 - $49,998 to be precise – excluding on-road costs (ORC). That makes it the cheapest plug-in hybrid ute on sale in Australia today.

It undercuts the BYD Shark 6 ($57,900 +ORC), the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV ($61,490 drive-away) and Ford’s Ranger PHEV ($61,000 +ORC) – a serious opening gambit from a brand most Australians have never heard of.

The model we’re testing is the top-spec Hunter X, $54,844 excluding ORC, and if you want it exactly as tested here, the price creeps up.

Budget around $1700 for the Pirelli off-road tyres, another $1500 for the sunroof and roughly $600 for the Ochre paint – currently one of the most popular finishes JAC is taking orders for.

The ownership elements are strong. On top of the fuel-saving PHEV driveline, the Hunter lands with a seven-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty that also covers commercial use – something most other utes do not.
 
You get seven years roadside assist, seven years capped-price servicing and an eight-year/150,000km battery warranty. There’s even a ute-for-ute loan program, so if yours is being serviced or repaired, JAC promises to hand you another ute – a strong peace-of-mind pitch for a new brand.

Equipment levels are generous. The Hunter X scores black styling packs, black roof rails, grille and mirrors, side steps, front and rear locking diffs, 200mm of ground clearance, a 550mm wading depth and a steel bash plate with two recovery points.

Inside there are leather-accented seats with red stitching and diamond quilting, six-way power adjustment for the driver, heated front seats, single-zone climate with physical buttons, a wireless phone charger, a 60-watt USB-C port and a power sunroof.

Infotainment runs through a vertical 10.4-inch touchscreen paired with a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster. It’s one of the better Chinese systems – logical menus, sensible shortcut icons and a customisable pull-down that lets you silence the bings and bongs in two taps. But it is a bit slow to respond and there’s no physical volume controller. 

Wired and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included, and the 360-degree camera – which flips to a top-down view as you approach an object – is excellent.

Safety-wise there are seven airbags and the Hunter is built to Australian five-star ANCAP standards, so fleet buyers will be all over it.

The powertrain is complex. It pairs a new 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine (160kW/370Nm) with two electric motors – a 130kW front motor and a stronger 150kW rear motor – fed by a 31.2kWh lithium-ion (LFP) battery pack.

Drive goes through a four-speed hybrid transmission with electric all-wheel drive, and JAC quotes a combined 360kW and 1010Nm, which looks and sounds like a LOT of mumbo. However, there’s no mechanical driveshaft between the axles and no low-range transfer case.

Value is the obvious one. You’re getting the most powerful ute (on paper) in the country, a locally tuned chassis and a huge equipment list for under $50k – and crucially, it doesn’t feel cheap.

The Michael Barber suspension tune is the star.

Compared with the pre-production car we drove a few months back, this final production version rides better – smooth, settled and fairly quiet, even on potholed B-roads. It sits flat through corners, the steering is well judged and it breathes with the road rather than skipping over bumps like many dual-cabs.

Simply put, it very sophisticated for a Chinese ute.

It’s efficient, too. JAC claims 1.6L/100km (if you keep it charged) and up to 100km of EV-only running on the NEDC cycle – our real-world testing showed closer to 80km, which still isn’t bad.

It runs on cheap 91-octane fuel, and the seven-year warranty and low running costs make a strong case for tradies and fleets.

Off-road it surprised us. The Pirelli Scorpion all-terrains find plenty of grip, the torque is superb for slow-speed climbing, wheel articulation is decent and the underbody protection inspires confidence. For a first effort, it’s better than expected.

The cabin is a touch tight for a ute and the execution isn’t quite as polished as some rivals like the BYD Shark 6. The driving position isn’t our favourite either – you sit a little high, with legs close to the wheel, and there’s no lumbar adjustment.

There’s no physical volume control near the touchscreen – just steering wheel buttons or voice control – although the touchscreen system itself is okay.

And those headline powertrain outputs need a grain of salt: the 360kW and 1010Nm figures are peak totals that never quite arrive together, and standing-start acceleration feels lethargic and a bit staccato for the first couple of seconds before it hits its stride.

When it does build up steam however, it can really hustle. You just have to be prepared to wait a while.

The off-road software also needs work. Because the front and rear axles have no physical connection, they can’t turn at the same rate, and when we got stuck in a boggy water crossing, that meant the front or rear wheels simply dug deeper into the muck.

We got it out after about 10 minutes, but the software clearly needs refining and recalibrating for this sort of scenario. We were also locked out of Rock mode because our state of charge was below 25 per cent. That’s probably more due to operator error – or a lack of understanding around the off-road modes.

Worth noting: two of our colleagues from rival publications had electrical gremlins in their test vehicles, one serious enough that the ute wouldn’t start. Our test car, to its credit, had no such issues, despite being stuck in a mud bog for up to its side steps and dropped into some other deep water crossings that ended other 4x4s in the past.

It’s still early days for JAC in Australia – the T9 diesel is struggling to find buyers and the brand needs more products and more awareness. An SUV will be coming soon.

But as the most affordable PHEV ute you can buy right now, the Hunter feels like a far better option than the badge suggests. We’re cautiously optimistic about this ute. But we need to undertake more testing to get a better idea of where its strengths lay, including towing and a payload run.

The Hunter isn’t perfect – the interior is a little tight, it’s not as polished as some rivals, and those output figures feel a bit wooly.

But what you get for a bit under $50k is fairly appealing: a locally tuned chassis that feels at home on Australian roads, real efficiency if you plug it in, and that seven-year unlimited-kilometre warranty that fleets and tradies will find hard to ignore.

If only it was more polished it would be a more intriguing proposition.

2026 JAC Hunter X PHEV at a glance:
Price: $54,844 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol PHEV
Output: 160kW/370Nm petrol (electric motors: 130kW/300Nm front, 150kW/340Nm rear)
Combined output: 360kW/1010Nm
Transmission: Four-speed hybrid automatic (4DHT)
Battery: 31.2kWh lithium-ion (LFP)
Range: 100km EV / 1005km combined (NEDC)
Energy consumption: N/A
Fuel: 1.6L/100km (NEDC)
CO2: 38g/km (NEDC)
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2024)

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