Foton T5 vs Land Rover Discovery Sport

What's the difference?

It’s still early days for battery-electric workhorses in Australia but Chinese brand Foton is making a concerted push into the zero-tailpipe-emissions commercial-vehicle market with its T5 EV.

The Beijing-based manufacturer, which has topped commercial-vehicle sales in China for almost two decades, is offering the ‘new energy’ electric T5 cab-chassis with a choice of GVM ratings: 4500kg for car licence operation or 6000kg for Light Rigid truck licence holders.

With a claimed fully-loaded driving range of 180km and unique-for-EV 3500kg braked tow rating, Foton says the T5 EV can also provide fleets with upfront and operational cost reductions of around 20 per cent compared to diesel. And it can be fitted with a wide variety of service bodies, including its own ready-to-work Tipper variant.

Foton is aiming to expand local sales by focusing on customers involved in last-mile logistics, local councils, construction and infrastructure support, for which this vehicle is best suited. We recently trialled a T5 EV to see how it stacks up as an alternative to diesel.

The Land Rover Discovery Sport is the sort of Land Rover you consider if you're not that serious about going off-road but still want something capable, but you don't want a car as large as it's Range Rover cousins.

Bonus points, the P300e mid-spec model I'm testing this week is a plug-in hybrid. So, you get the best of all worlds - capability, decent size and economy.

The new powertrain pits it against the Lexus NX450+, Volvo XC60, Audi Q5 and even the BMW X3 but while the P300e is great on paper, how does it stack-up in real life?