The short version
- Three battery electric dual cabs now have Australian prices. KGM’s Musso EV from $60,000 drive-away, Toyota’s HiLux BEV from $74,990 before on-roads, and MG’s U9 EV at $78,990 before on-roads as announced on 18 September 2026.
- Only the MG claims the number utes are sold on. 3,500kg braked towing. The HiLux BEV is rated at 2,000kg and the Musso EV at 1,800kg — roughly half a conventional dual cab’s rating, which rules out a large caravan or a three-horse float before any range question is asked.
- The range figures are not comparable. The MG’s 430km and the Musso’s 420km are WLTP. Toyota’s figure is quoted on the older, gentler NEDC cycle, and the reporting we found does not even agree on what it is — 315km in one outlet, 240km in another.
- Towing eats range faster than anything else you can do to an EV. The Australian towing coverage we read puts the hit at 30 to 50 per cent under load, and worse behind a caravan. Applied to these three, that is the difference between a work vehicle and a vehicle that works near home.
- Nobody is expecting volume. Toyota has forecast about 500 HiLux BEV sales in Australia this year, against roughly 50,000 HiLuxes in a normal year. The electrified ute that is actually selling here is a plug-in hybrid.
The three of them, side by side
Every figure in this table is the manufacturer’s claim as reported by the source named against it. Nothing here has been independently verified by anyone, including us.
| KGM Musso EV | $60,000 drive-away (2WD), $62,000 Black Edge, $64,000 AWD. On sale since 1 December 2025. 80.6kWh LFP battery. 2WD: 152kW/339Nm, 420km WLTP, 905kg payload. AWD: 380km WLTP, 805kg payload. Braked towing 1,800kg, unbraked 750kg. Vehicle-to-load standard. Seven-year vehicle warranty, ten years on the high-voltage battery. Source: RACV, CarExpert. |
|---|---|
| Toyota HiLux BEV | $74,990 SR dual-cab/chassis, $76,490 SR dual-cab pickup, $82,990 SR5 pickup, all before on-road costs. In showrooms from the second quarter of 2026. 59.2kWh battery. Dual motor all-wheel drive: 82kW/206Nm front, 129kW/269Nm rear, 144kW/468Nm combined. Range quoted on the NEDC cycle, up to 315km for the pickup and 245km for the cab-chassis, with a lower 240km figure appearing elsewhere. Braked towing 2,000kg. DC charging to 150kW, 10–80 per cent in about 30 minutes. Source: CarExpert, CarsGuide. |
| MG U9 EV | $78,990 before on-road costs, announced 18 September 2026, deliveries from the fourth quarter. 102.2kWh LFP battery. Dual motor all-wheel drive, 325kW/700Nm, 0–100km/h in a claimed 5.8 seconds. 430km WLTP. Braked towing 3,500kg, unbraked 750kg. Payload 685kg. 236-litre front boot. 115kW DC (20–80 per cent in about 42 minutes), 11kW AC, vehicle-to-load at 6.6kW external and 2.2kW internal. Australia is the first market in the world to get it. Source: The Driven, CarsGuide, WhichCar. |
Read the table twice and a pattern falls out that the price list hides. The cheapest ute has the biggest payload. The most expensive has the biggest battery, the biggest tow rating and the smallest payload of the three. And the one wearing the badge that has sold hundreds of thousands of utes in this country has the smallest battery by a distance — 59.2kWh, less than three-fifths of the MG’s.
Towing is the whole argument
A dual cab in Australia is bought on a number: 3,500kg braked. It is on every brochure for every diesel ute, and it is the reason the segment exists in the shape it does. Only the MG U9 EV matches it. The HiLux BEV is rated at 2,000kg, the Musso EV at 1,800kg.
That is not a small gap. A 1,800kg rating covers a box trailer, a tandem with a bobcat on it at a stretch, a small camper. It does not cover the caravan most people picture when they buy a ute with towing in mind. Buyers who need the big number have exactly one electric option today, and it costs $78,990 before on-roads.
Then there is what towing does to range, which is where the specification sheet stops helping. The Australian towing coverage we read for this piece is consistent: expect 30 to 50 per cent less range under load, and the worst of it behind a caravan, because a caravan is a large flat box pushing air. One explainer puts it plainly — a 500km rated range becomes something like 250km real-world with 2.5 tonnes behind you into a headwind.
Our arithmetic, clearly labelled as ours, applied to the claimed figures: a 40 per cent reduction takes the MG’s 430km to roughly 260km, the Musso’s 420km to about 250km, and a 315km HiLux to about 190km. At 50 per cent they become roughly 215km, 210km and 160km. Those are not test results. They are what the published range claims become if the published towing penalty is applied to them, and they are the reason we will not call any of these three a touring vehicle until somebody hooks a trailer to one and measures it.
Reasoning beyond the sources: the towing problem is not only range, it is the shape of the charging network. A dual cab with a caravan on the back cannot use most DC bays, because it cannot be unhitched in a car park and cannot reverse into a bay with a van attached. Pull-through charging sites exist in Australia but they are rare, and none of the three manufacturers is responsible for building them. A 3,500kg rating on a battery vehicle is a promise that partly depends on infrastructure the maker does not control.
The range numbers do not compare, and one of them is unclear
MG quotes 430km WLTP. KGM quotes 420km and 380km WLTP. Toyota quotes the NEDC cycle. These are different tests, and NEDC is the older and more generous of the two — the same vehicle will generally look better on NEDC than on WLTP. Putting 430 next to 315 as though they were measured the same way flatters the Toyota, and we would rather say so than print a tidy league table.
There is a second problem with the HiLux figure. CarExpert reported in March that the range was “anticipated to be up to 315km on the NEDC cycle” and explicitly noted the figure had yet to be finalised, with 245km for the heavier cab-chassis. CarsGuide’s September comparison of the three utes lists the HiLux BEV at 240km. We cannot reconcile those from published sources. Either the final homologated number landed well below the anticipated one, or different outlets are quoting different variants and cycles. If you are shopping, get the figure in writing from the dealer for the exact variant, and ask which cycle it was measured on.
Payload, the quieter problem
Utes are marketed as one-tonne vehicles. None of these three is. The Musso EV carries 905kg in front-wheel drive and 805kg with the second motor fitted. The MG U9 EV carries 685kg. Toyota’s payload figure did not appear in the reporting we could verify, so we have left it out rather than guess.
A battery big enough to move a ute is heavy, and every kilogram of it comes out of what you can put in the tray. The MG’s 685kg is the price of its 102.2kWh pack and its towing rating. That is a real trade and a buyer should see it stated as one: the electric ute with the caravan-capable tow rating is also the one with the least room left for tools, a canopy, a load of pavers and three passengers.
Charging claims against a stopwatch we have not started
Two of the three quote a DC peak that does not obviously match the charge time quoted beside it. We cannot test these, but we can do the division, and the division is ours.
| KGM Musso EV | Claimed DC peak 300kW, 20–80 per cent in about 31 minutes. That window is roughly 48.4kWh of an 80.6kWh pack, which works out at about 94kW average on our arithmetic. A 300kW peak, if it is reached at all, is held very briefly. |
|---|---|
| MG U9 EV | Claimed DC peak 115kW, 20–80 per cent in about 42 minutes. That is roughly 61.3kWh in 0.7 hours, or about 88kW average — close enough to the claimed peak to be credible. |
| Toyota HiLux BEV | Claimed DC peak 150kW, 10–80 per cent in about 30 minutes. That is roughly 41.4kWh of a 59.2kWh pack in half an hour, or about 83kW average on our arithmetic. |
None of this means a manufacturer is being dishonest — a peak rate and an average rate are different claims, and every EV tapers as the battery fills. It does mean that the headline kilowatt figure tells you very little about how long you will stand at a charger, and the 300kW on the cheapest ute here is the number we would be most careful with.
Why all three arrived at once
Utes are the last part of the Australian market to electrify, and the timing is not a coincidence. The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard has been in force since January 2025, with financial penalties applying from 1 July 2025. Brands are assessed against a fleet-average CO2 limit across everything they sell in a year, and pay $50 for every gram per kilometre they are over, multiplied by the vehicles sold.
In 2026 the passenger-car limit is 117 grams per kilometre and the light-commercial limit — the utes and vans — is 180 grams. Both tighten annually. In February 2026 the regulator published the first performance period’s interim values, covering July to December 2025, and the ABC reported the resulting liabilities: Mazda $25.4 million, Nissan $10.8 million, Subaru $7 million, Hyundai $4.2 million, with smaller amounts for some luxury brands. About two-thirds of brands met their targets. Liabilities are not due for three years, and can be extinguished by earning or buying credits — BYD alone generated more than six million units of credit, theoretically enough to cover the industry’s entire first-year exposure.
Reasoning beyond the sources: a brand that sells tens of thousands of diesel dual cabs a year has a mathematical problem that only a zero-emission light commercial vehicle can fix cheaply. Toyota forecasting 500 HiLux BEVs against 50,000 HiLuxes is not a sales ambition; it is a fleet-average lever, sold to mining, construction and government buyers who have their own emissions reporting to satisfy. That does not make the vehicle bad. It does explain why a 59.2kWh battery and a 2,000kg tow rating were considered sufficient to bring to market.
What Australians are actually buying
Nothing in this segment is happening in a vacuum, and the vacuum is not where the sales are. The electrified ute that has changed the Australian market is the BYD Shark 6, a plug-in hybrid, which by the middle of this year was the fourth best-selling four-wheel-drive ute in the country behind the Ranger, HiLux and D-Max. Ford has been discounting the Ranger PHEV in response, and reported 1,264 Ranger PHEV sales in the first six months of 2026.
The diesel incumbents, meanwhile, are having a strange year. Ford sold 32,796 Rangers to the end of August, against 37,183 over the same months of 2025 — an 11.8 per cent drop, which Ford attributes in part to an airbag recall that held roughly 14,000 vehicles in dealer stock and cut August alone to 2,440 sales. The HiLux more than doubled that in the same month. Our August sales snapshot has the rest of that month in detail, including the first time battery EVs outsold every other powertrain here.
Reasoning beyond the sources: the plug-in hybrid ute is winning right now because it answers the towing and remoteness question with a fuel tank. The battery utes in this article answer it with a battery and a charging network that is still being built. That is a harder sell to a buyer who tows twice a year to a place with no chargers, and an easier one to a fleet that runs a fixed route and parks in a depot overnight. The depot is where these three will live or die.
What we would need to see before recommending any of them
We score vehicles we have tested. We have not tested these, so this is the test we would want done — by us or by anyone independent — before a number gets attached to any of them.
| Towed range, measured | Real consumption at 1,500kg, 2,000kg and, for the MG, 3,500kg, at highway speed, in both directions of a route so the wind averages out. The single most important number in the segment and the one nobody has published. |
|---|---|
| Payload with a real body | What is left after a canopy or a service body, a tow bar, a bull bar and five occupants. A 685kg payload does not survive much of that list. |
| Charging with a trailer attached | Whether the vehicle can physically use common Australian DC sites while hitched, and what that does to a trip plan. |
| The charge curve, not the peak | A logged 10–100 per cent session in summer and in winter, so the 300kW and 150kW claims can be seen rather than quoted. |
| Work-site duty cycle | Vehicle-to-load running tools all day, then range remaining. This is the genuine advantage of an electric ute and it is the least-tested thing about all three. |
| Rough-road and dust sealing | These are being sold to mining and construction. Battery pack protection and underbody clearance matter more here than in any other EV category. |
Who each one appears to be for
On the published figures alone, and with no drive impressions of any kind:
- KGM Musso EV — the cheapest way into the segment at $60,000 drive-away, the best payload of the three, the longest battery warranty, and a tow rating that suits a trailer rather than a van. A suburban trades vehicle that comes home to a charger every night.
- Toyota HiLux BEV — the smallest battery, the shortest range on the most generous test cycle, and a price above the diesel it copies. It exists for fleets that need a zero-tailpipe ute with a HiLux service network behind it, which is a real requirement and a narrow one.
- MG U9 EV — the only one that claims the 3,500kg number, with the battery and the outputs to match, and a payload that pays for it. Also the only one nobody in Australia has driven yet, since deliveries start in the fourth quarter.
- Everyone else — if the ute tows a caravan twice a year to somewhere without chargers, the market has already answered with a plug-in hybrid, and the sales figures show buyers agreeing.
Sources
Figures and quotes above are drawn from these sources, captured 23 September 2026:
- The Driven — MG announces $78,990 price for electric U9 ute, with 430km range and 3.5 tonne towing (18 September 2026): the price, the 102.2kWh LFP battery, 325kW/700Nm, 430km WLTP, 3,500kg braked and 750kg unbraked towing, the 685kg payload, the 236-litre front boot, 115kW DC and 11kW AC charging, the 6.6kW and 2.2kW vehicle-to-load outputs, the fourth-quarter timing and the statement that Australia is the first market globally.
- CarsGuide — 2026 MG U9 EV detailed in Australia ahead of rivalry with KGM Musso EV and Toyota HiLux BEV electric utes (18 September 2026): the U9 specification and equipment list, and the side-by-side comparison figures for the Musso EV and HiLux BEV, including the 240km HiLux range figure discussed above.
- WhichCar — MG reveals electric ute and huge luxury SUV at Everything Electric Sydney: the U9’s Sydney appearance at Everything Electric, held at Sydney Showground on 18–20 September 2026.
- CarExpert — 2026 Toyota HiLux BEV: New electric ute priced for Australia (31 March 2026): the $74,990, $76,490 and $82,990 variant prices, the 59.2kWh battery, the 82kW/206Nm front and 129kW/269Nm rear motors for 144kW/468Nm combined, the “anticipated to be up to 315km on the NEDC cycle” wording and the note that it was not final, the 245km cab-chassis figure, 2,000kg braked towing, 150kW DC and 10kW three-phase AC charging, the second-quarter arrival, and Toyota’s 500-unit forecast aimed at mining, construction and government fleets.
- RACV — 2026 KGM Musso EV: Australian price, specs, range, towing capacity and release date (19 November 2025): the $60,000, $62,000 and $64,000 drive-away prices, the 1 December 2025 sales start, the 80.6kWh LFP battery, 152kW/339Nm for the 2WD, 420km and 380km WLTP, the 905kg and 805kg payloads, 1,800kg braked and 750kg unbraked towing, and the 31-minute 20–80 per cent DC claim. Note that RACV and CarExpert quote different combined outputs for the all-wheel-drive variant, which is why no power figure for it appears in our table.
- CarExpert — 2026 KGM Musso EV price and specs: Australia’s cheapest electric ute detailed: the same pricing and battery, the 300kW DC claim used in our arithmetic, standard vehicle-to-load, and the seven-year vehicle and ten-year battery warranties.
- Drive Electric — Electric ute towing range: the hard truth about caravans in 2026 and The Canberra Times — Electric utes and towing: what Aussies need to know before hitching up in 2026: the 30 to 50 per cent range reduction under load and the halved-range caravan example. Specialist commentary rather than instrumented testing, and treated here as such.
- ABC News — Mazda, Nissan, Hyundai and Subaru face multi-million-dollar penalties under NVES (18 February 2026): the $50 per gram penalty rate, the July to December 2025 first performance period, the Mazda, Nissan, Subaru and Hyundai liabilities, the 141g/km 2025 and 117g/km 2026 passenger targets, the two-thirds compliance figure, the three-year payment window and the credit-trading mechanism including BYD’s six million units.
- New Vehicle Efficiency Standard Regulator — What is the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard: the standard’s structure and the separate light-commercial limit, quoted here at 180g/km for 2026. We were unable to load the regulator’s pages directly on the day of writing and have relied on secondary reporting for the figure, which is flagged rather than hidden.
- CarsGuide — 2026 Ford Everest and Ranger see steep sales declines in Australia (7 September 2026): the 32,796 versus 37,183 year-to-date Ranger figures, the 11.8 per cent drop, the 2,440 August result and the airbag recall affecting about 14,000 vehicles, the HiLux’s 4,833, and the Shark 6’s month-on-month gain.
- Yahoo Autos — Ford makes major Ranger PHEV move after BYD Shark 6 storms Australia’s sales charts: the 1,264 Ranger PHEV sales in the first half of 2026 and the Shark 6’s position as the fourth best-selling four-wheel-drive ute.
- New Technology — 24.9 per cent: the month electric cars outsold petrol in Australia (14 September 2026): our earlier snapshot of the August 2026 sales data referred to above.