Cavan C1 vs Nissan Navara

What's the difference?

It was, of course, inevitable that electric cargo vans would fall in price. Even allowing for the front-loading of running costs inherent in an EV, the fact that many cargo vans are company-owned and, therefore, purchased largely on price, meant somebody would hit the market with a cheapie that did the job.

In Australia, the cut-price last-mile vans include the Kia PV5 EV and Farizon V7E, both with price-tags under $56,000. The Farizon was the title-holder at sub-$50K drive-away, but a newcomer called the Cavan C1 rewrites that script with a starting price of under $45,000, drive-away, for the cheapest version.

A sub-brand of Chinese behemoth Foton, the Cavan brand will be distributed and retailed in Australia by a separate company to Inchcape (the local Foton distributor) and at the moment, there’s but a single dealership (in Melbourne’s south-east suburbs). That will surely change, however, as deliveries ramp up and the word gets out. In fact, as we go to press, a second dealership, also in Melbourne, has been announced.

Developing a new motor vehicle from scratch costs billions which is why manufacturers are increasingly sharing vehicle platforms and technology to spread these ever-increasing costs across two (or more) strategically aligned automotive brands.

This ‘badge engineering’ strategy is becoming popular in the light-commercial vehicle (LCV) segment as evidenced by partnerships between Ford and Volkswagen with their Ranger/Amarok and Transit Custom/Transporter pairings, Isuzu and Mazda with their D-Max/BT-50 duo and Chinese contenders MG and LDV with their U9/Terron 9 tie-up.

Mitsubishi and Nissan have recently established a similar relationship, with Mitsubishi’s Triton donating its underpinnings for the latest Nissan Navara. We recently spent a week with Nissan’s new entry-level model grade to assess its credentials from a tradie’s perspective.