GWM Cannon Hi4-T: the fuel label assumes you charge it

The ute will sleep on the street. That's the detail that decides the running cost, and you won't find it on the brochure.

This buyer is illustrative, a composite and not anyone we've met. He's a plumber on the edge of Geelong. He rents, parks out the front and leaves for his first job at 6:00 am. He's been pricing a diesel ute, and now a plug-in hybrid has landed under his number: the GWM Cannon Hi4-T.

After the price, the next figure he'll reach for is the fuel label. For him, it's the wrong figure until he answers one question. How often will that battery actually get charged?

What the Cannon Hi4-T costs at launch

GWM's Cannon page lists the plug-in hybrid in two grades for private buyers in Victoria. The Lux is $50,990 drive-away and the Ultra is $54,990 drive-away. CarExpert and CarsGuide report the same private prices and say ABN holders pay $1,000 less. That matters to a tradie buying through the business.

There's a launch bonus on top. GWM offers either $2,000 off the advertised drive-away price or a $2,000 fuel card, and the offer runs until 30 November 2026. Zecar reports the offer was extended from 31 October, and that the ute has to be delivered by 30 November to qualify. That's a delivery date, not an order date, so ask the dealer about stock before you count on the bonus.

A fuel card is an odd bonus for a ute with a plug. It's also an honest one. GWM knows plenty of these utes will burn fuel.

We'll leave the price comparison there. The rivals get quoted on different terms in different states, sometimes drive-away and sometimes before on-road costs, so lining them up dollar for dollar would mislead you. Get a drive-away quote for your own postcode on each one.

The sticker price settles one question. It doesn't settle the plug-in question.

How a plug-in hybrid fuel label is tested

The Australian Government's Green Vehicle Guide sets it out. A plug-in hybrid's fuel figure combines two tests, one on battery power and one on petrol or diesel. The guide's fuel consumption label pages say the same thing from a different angle: plug-in hybrids are tested with a charged battery and with a depleted one.

Carmakers point the same way in their fine print. BYD Australia's Shark 6 material says its fuel figures come from ADR 81/02 test results and that real-world use varies. That isn't a dig at BYD.

Then the Green Vehicle Guide says the part buyers skip. A plug-in hybrid uses more fuel when its battery is low, and keeping the battery around 80 per cent charged cuts what you spend on fuel.

So the label blends a run on a charged battery with a run on a flat one. It assumes the battery gets used.

What the label means if you park on the street

Back to the plumber. He has no garage and no power point the ute can reach from the kerb. If he never plugs in, his ute runs the depleted half of that test every working day. The charged half, the part that pulls the label figure down, never happens for him.

That doesn't make the Cannon a bad buy for him. It makes it a different buy. If the ute will rarely see a plug, he should budget like someone running on fuel alone and compare it with the diesel on that basis. On those terms, the $2,000 fuel card is the real discount, not a sweetener.

We haven't seen a figure for the Cannon on a flat battery, and we won't guess at one until it's been through our own review.

Now flip it around. A buyer with a garage, a power point and a working day that mostly fits inside one charge is much closer to the driver the label was written for. It's the same ute with the same label, and the fuel bill comes out very differently.

The charging homework before the dealer visit

Do this before you walk into the yard. It takes one evening and a notepad.

1. Where does the ute sleep each night: garage, driveway, carport or street?
2. Is there a power point it can reach, and if you rent, are you allowed to use it?
3. How much of a normal week fits inside one day's run on the battery, and how much is long drives on fuel?
4. Is there public charging near the jobs, the depot or the supplier you stop at every day?
5. Do you tow, and how often?

If the honest answer to the first two is "rarely", budget on fuel. If the answers are "most nights" and "most of the week", the label starts to look like your number, and the cost of charging is the next line to work out.

Where Charge Nomad fits

Charge Nomad does that homework with your own figures, on iPhone and Android, with no ads. Off-Peak Savings, Charging Time and Trip Cost are free, and they run on the phone, so they still work in a driveway with no signal. The free charger map opens where you are, with pins coloured by speed (Standard up to 50kW, Rapid 50 to 149kW, Ultra-rapid 150kW and above) and a connector filter, so you can see what's near the jobs you actually drive to. Towing Impact is free too and shows how much range and how many extra stops a trailer costs you. If your ute isn't in the catalogue of more than 300 vehicles, add it as a custom vehicle. The Route Planner and the Range Estimator come with Charge Nomad+, and the Route Planner has a fuel station mode, using petrol stations from OpenStreetMap, for trips that mix petrol and electric.

On iPhone, Charge Nomad+ is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year in Australia, with a 7 day free trial on the monthly plan. On Android, the monthly plan also has a 7 day free trial, and Google Play shows the price before you buy. Prices vary by country. Most of the app works without an account.

See what the app actually does before you download it: evbygenz.com/app

If you've owned a plug-in hybrid for a year, how often did it really get charged compared with what you planned when you bought it?