Gac Aion Ut vs Toyota HiAce

What's the difference?

The Aion UT is a cleverly-specified little hatchback and a great entry-point into electric motoring. The software needs a bit of work from a usability perspective, plus the spongy ride and cutesy styling might not be for everyone. 

However, with strong points including driving range, cabin space and value, there’s even a pitch for it in some cases to be an only car compared to most of its price rivals, which are more likely to be thought of as a second car runabout in a two-car garage.

The pick of the range is definitely the entry-level Premium. It comes in at a headline-grabbing price with specs to blow rivals out of the water, while only missing out on a few luxuries.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

The HiAce maintains its staggering 50 per cent share of the mid-size commercial van market for numerous compelling reasons including its versatility, as evidenced by the diverse range of Aussie businesses that rely on it. Toyota’s latest suite of safety and other upgrades makes it even better.

GAC tells us the UT hatch was designed in Milan, Italy, but it also isn’t ashamed of the Chinese influence on its overall appearance, like the ultra-short bonnet and Chinese city-car style face.

Along the side it has a modern, aerodynamic profile, and the ultra-short overhangs and long wheelbase maximise the amount of room for batteries under the floor and interior space.

The rear feels a lot like a modern Mini, with its bulbous tailgate and protruding light clusters, spiced up with a sporty spoiler piece jutting out.

It’s not a bad looking thing and it’s available in an array of fun colours.

On the inside it seems to follow the established rule-book of Chinese automakers, with plush trims, big screens with minimal physical buttons as well as a contemporary two-spoke steering wheel.

There’s a trendy floating console which hosts the cupholders and wireless charger on the Luxury grade, and an array of interesting patterns and textures through the doors and dash which you wouldn’t have once seen on a car at this price-point.

However, it is worth noting that while the seats are quite nice, and the steering wheel is a stand-out touchpoint, the trims on the doors and across the dash-top are hard plastics, more so than some of this car’s rivals.

Apart from the recent safety upgrades, our LWB test vehicle resolutely adheres to a design that’s been perfected through decades of hard yakka.

Its simple and robust unitary chassis features MacPherson strut front suspension, a leaf-spring live rear axle, rack and pinion steering and (on all automatic variants) four-wheel disc brakes.

The HiAce’s traditional rear-wheel drive layout has an inherent traction advantage over front-wheel drive rivals, particularly when towing and hauling heavy loads on low-grip surfaces.

It also ensures the front wheels can be turned sharply enough for its 3210mm wheelbase to deliver an impressively tight 11.0-metre turning circle. And its 1990mm height also allows access to underground loading docks and multi-storey car parks.

There’s no load-floor liner or cabin bulkhead included as standard equipment, but both are available as Toyota genuine accessories. The use of unpainted plastic bumpers is designed to best withstand the wear and tear often evident in these areas on hard-working vans.

The cabin is spacious and airy, with a neat and functional dash design featuring large and clear instrumentation and (thankfully) physical dials and buttons rather than distracting touchscreens for the main controls that are easy to reach and operate. It’s a commercial van that’s easy to live with.

In terms of interior space, the Aion UT stands out with its spacious cabin. At 182cm tall, I am easily able to find a comfortable seating position, and visibility out the front sides and rear, while not as good as some small SUVs, isn’t bad.

There’s lots of headroom, and while I mentioned the hard plastic door cards before, there’s enough padding everywhere your elbows are going to touch to make it feel a bit nicer than perhaps it is.

The main drawback of this car for me is the lack of tactile buttons and the frustrating software.

The main screen isn’t particularly well utilised, being taken up by either a background or the navigation map, with an array of typically small shortcuts across the bottom for important features like the climate control or settings menus.

You can pre-set a few information panels which sit above the shortcut bar as in many rival cars and there’s also a shortcut tray which can be hosted on the driver’s side and configured with a variety of shortcuts and settings.

It’s just a bit clumsy to use, and the array of poorly-labelled settings menus for things like active safety equipment feel needlessly complicated.

I’d love to see this car with physical controls for climate and multimedia to make it easier to live with.

Up front the storage is decent. There are big pockets in the doors and a large storage tray between the driver and front passenger thanks to a flat floor. There’s also a slightly weird storage box under the touchscreen which has a net inside, good for more delicate objects you don’t want flying around the cabin.

On the floating console there are two cupholders which are a bit too shallow for my liking, and the wireless charger feels almost pointless because its made of a hard plastic, so your phone just slides right off in the corners. The cabled outlets are hidden beneath which allows for tidy cable management and the centre armrest console box is a healthy size.

The rear seat is comparatively basic, although touches on the key points. Its main advantage is how generous the space is. My frame was able to fit behind my own driving position with heaps of room for my knees, and just enough room for my head despite the dip in the roof for the sunroof shade in the Luxury-grade car we tested. There may be even more headroom in the base car.

The flat floor makes the space useful even for three across in a pinch and there’s a drop-down armrest with (again, shallow) cupholders. There are pockets on the back of both front seats and smallish pockets in each door. The array of soft trims continues, too, and the back of the centre console features a partially adjustable air vent. Luxury spec cars get a single USB rear power outlet.

As with many Chinese cars in this segment, the generous rear seat space comes at a cost to the boot. It measures just 321 litres, which is slightly smaller than its main opponents in this category, although larger than some hatchbacks like the Toyota Corolla, for example.

It has its advantages, though. The floor is two-tiered, and can offer a flat load area with the rear seats folded down, or a deeper boot in its lower position. Underneath there’s a cutaway good for charging equipment and the tyre repair kit (sorry, no spare wheel in here).

Unlike some EVs, the Aion UT doesn’t get a frunk (front boot) for additional storage.

With its hefty 2260kg kerb weight and 3300kg GVM, our test vehicle has a 1040kg payload rating. So, it’s a genuine one-tonner and up to 120kg of that can be carried on Toyota’s triple roof-rack set.

The HiAce is also rated to tow up to 1500kg of braked trailer and with its 4800kg GCM rating (or how much weight it can legally carry and tow at the same time) it can carry its maximum payload while towing its maximum trailer weight. So, that’s more than 2.5 tonnes of combined cargo-carrying capacity, which would comfortably meet or exceed most job requirements.

Its cavernous cargo bay, which offers 6.2 cubic metres of load volume, is accessed from either side through sliding doors with 1010mm-wide openings, or through rear barn-doors with 180-degrees opening to allow easy forklift access.

The cargo bay is 2530mm long, 1760mm wide and 1340mm high, with 1268mm between the rear wheel housings allowing up to two standard Aussie pallets or three Euro pallets to be carried, secured by a choice of six load-anchorage points.

An unusual feature is the roof’s full-length internal lining, which we suspect contributes to at least some suppression of tyre noise emanating from the rear-wheel housings. The walls and doors are neatly lined to mid-height and there’s ample internal lighting.

Generous cabin storage includes a bottle-holder and bin in each front door, small bottle/cupholders in the centre and either side of the dash, plus a single glove box. The console between the seats offers another two bottle-holders plus generous internal storage, which is topped by a large hinged lid that can also serve as a storage tray or work desk.

The base model LWB HiAce two-seater van comes standard with Toyota’s signature 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel (shared by all HiAce models) and manual gearbox for a list price of $51,880, but our test vehicle is equipped with a six-speed automatic and rear barn-doors which raises the price to $54,630.

Other standard equipment includes Vanilla White paint, 16-inch steel wheels with replaceable plastic covers, 215/70R16 tyres and a full-size spare, halogen headlights and DRLs, leather-accented steering wheel with multiple remote functions, power-adjustable lumbar support on the driver’s seat, a USB port and 12-volt cabin sockets, an 8.0-inch touchscreen to control the two-speaker multimedia system with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity and more.

Recent upgrades to optimise driver comfort include a new 7.0-inch digital driver’s instrument cluster (previously analogue) with nine selectable displays, plus a new refrigerant to improve air conditioning performance (even though the previous system was always ice cold), an electronic parking brake on automatic models to replace the old-school mechanical lever and electric power steering to replace Toyota’s traditional hydraulic power assistance for reduced steering effort and more advanced lane-keeping smarts.

The latest safety upgrades include ‘lane trace assist’ which is designed to help the HiAce remain in the centre of its lane when the adaptive cruise is activated (see Driving).

There’s also a new ‘emergency driver support system’ which works with lane trace assist to detect if the driver has become unresponsive when adaptive cruise is activated. If the driver doesn't respond to audio and visual alerts, the system is designed to activate the hazard lights and bring the vehicle to a safe and steady stop.

Other upgrades include ‘safe exit assist’ which links with the van’s blind-spot monitor to improve safety when exiting the vehicle on the roadside, by issuing alerts when passing vehicles or cyclists are detected.

Cruise control functionality has also been expanded, with automatic grades like ours getting ‘full-speed function’ which can automatically stop the vehicle and then resume moving without the driver needing to intervene. This is especially useful in heavy stop-start city traffic.

Passive safety has also been improved with an additional centre airbag which protects driver and passenger from colliding in an accident.

The Aion UT has a front-mounted electric motor producing 150kW/210Nm. That’s plenty punchy for any hatchback at this price, and I like the way the brand hasn’t messed around with a sub-100kW motor in the base variant to push prospects towards the top-spec car.

It’s more powerful than all of its closest rivals and at the time of writing you’ll have to spend four to six thousand dollars more to get into something equivalent from BYD, Chery, Jaecoo, Leapmotor or MG.

It even has a claimed 0-100km/h sprint time as low as 7.3 seconds.

Toyota’s well-proven (1GD-FTV) 2.8-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-diesel produces 130kW of power at 3400rpm and, in auto models like ours, 450Nm of torque between 1600-2400rpm. Its Euro 5 emissions compliance doesn’t require AdBlue, which minimises maintenance and running costs.

The refined six-speed torque converter automatic offers the choice of sequential manual-shifting. Fuel efficiency is optimised with full torque converter lock-up on fourth, fifth and sixth gears, along with overdrive on fifth and sixth to minimise engine rpm when highway driving. The traction advantage of rear-wheel drive is enhanced by an electronically controlled automatic limited-slip diff.

The Aion UT has a 60kWh lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which grants it a WLTP-certified 430km of driving range.

That’s more than its closest rivals, like the entry-level Ora Standard Range (310km), BYD Dolphin Essential (410km) or BYD Atto 2 (345km).

Claimed efficiency is 16.4kWh/100km and the car I tested returned a consumption of 14.0kWh/100km over a 130km route of mixed conditions, which isn’t bad at all.

Charging speeds are less impressive, but realistically appropriate for the relatively small battery. The peak DC charging capacity of 87kW means a charge time which the brand quotes at 24 minutes, but this is from 30-80 per cent. Expect closer to 40 minutes for a 10-80 per cent charge.

AC charging is decent, at 11kW. This should have you charging from 10-80 per cent between four and five hours.

Toyota claims combined cycle (urban/extra-urban) average consumption of 7.8L/100km. Our 328km of testing was conducted with the engine’s auto start/stop function switched off and comprised the usual mix of city, suburban and highway driving, of which about one third was hauling a near-maximum payload.

Our own figure, calculated from fuel bowser and tripmeter readings, was 10.7L/100km. That’s still within the usual 2.0-3.0L/100km discrepancy between official and real-world figures and not bad for a vehicle weighing more than 2.2 tonnes driven mostly in metro settings and hauling more than one tonne during our test. So, based on our real-world consumption, you could expect a driving range of around 650km from its 70-litre tank.

The drive experience can be where a lot of Chinese cars fall down but I walked away less frustrated by the Aion UT.

That’s not to say it will behave as you might expect a low-slung hatchback to. The suspension, for example, is extremely soft as it maintains its original Chinese-market state-of-tune.

This makes the car waft over imperfections on city roads. And in that sense it offers supreme ride comfort in the scenarios it was designed for. However, at the extremes, like some speed bumps, or particularly deep pot holes there can be a surprisingly violent re-bound sending a thud through the cabin.

The other trade-off for soft suspension is less body control. I was surprised to find that the Aion UT holds it together mostly well on a flat country B-road, but when undulations and big dips introduce themselves, the soft suspension can be too slow to react, making the car lose confidence in higher-speed open road scenarios we’re more used to in Australia.

The steering, like many electric cars in this category, is relatively heavily electrically assisted. This makes it light and easy to adjust at low speeds for easy park and maneuverability in the confines of a city. It loses a little bit of road-feel at higher speeds but the Aion UT’s steering is far from the least connected I’ve experienced recently.

One thing it can’t be criticised for is a lack of power. With 150kW instantaneously available the Aion UT has some serious poke and while the ChaoYang tyre package is tuned more for efficiency than grip, it’s again not one of the worst I’ve driven with.

One thing which helps the whole experience along is this car’s hatchback layout. With the weight of the battery low and squat and the wheels all the way out to the edges of the frame, the Aion UT inherently handles decently compared to an electric crossover or small SUV.

Like all Chinese cars, the UT has a host of occasionally frustrating driver aids, which you can read about in the Safety section below. While I was inclined to turn some of the features off after testing them, the alerts are relatively quiet and non-invasive.

Is the UT any good to drive? It’s not bad for the segment, I was largely pleased with how it handled and the power on offer, and while it still has its annoyances, they’re not big deal-breakers. 

The MG4 rear-drive is a better allrounder, while the GWM Ora isn’t as good. I’d say it’s on par with the BYD Dolphin, but they excel in different areas. The Dolphin's a bit sharper in terms of handling but the Aion UT is more comfortable.

The driving position is comfortable thanks to a well-sorted combination of supportive seating with power-adjustable lumbar support, a leather-rimmed steering wheel that’s adjustable for height and reach and a large left footrest for extra support.

The standard kerbside sliding door includes a large window, which partly reduces the huge blind spot over the driver’s left shoulder created by the cargo bay’s solid walls.

Fortunately, the HiAce also comes standard with blind-spot monitoring to ensure safe lane-changing on multi-lane roads, while its rear cross-traffic alert and rear-view camera are equally valuable when reversing out of driveways into busy traffic.

The new electric power steering has more noticeable changes in turning weight compared to the more linear hydraulic system it replaces. Its variable-ratio assistance feels even lighter at parking speeds for easier manoeuvrability and becomes increasingly firm and direct as road speeds increase.

Ride quality is reasonably supple when unladen or lightly loaded and the 2.8-litre turbo-diesel, with its sizeable 450Nm of torque, has strong low-rpm response and displays good flexibility in city and suburban driving.

Internal noise levels below 80km/h are acceptable, but like all vans can become intolerable at highway speeds due largely to tyre roar emanating from the rear-wheel housings. So, if you do lots of highway travel, we’d recommend fitting Toyota’s genuine accessory solid bulkhead to insulate the cabin from this noise.

The six-speed auto’s shift calibrations feel like they’re getting the best out of this engine, particularly fuel-efficient highway travel which requires less than 2000rpm to maintain 110km/h. The sequential manual-shifting function can be handy in certain situations, though, like hauling/towing heavy loads in hilly terrain.

To test its GVM rating we forklifted 830kg into the cargo bay, which combined with our crew of two equalled a total payload of 1010kg that was only about 30kg less than its 1040kg limit.

The stout rear leaf-springs only compressed about 30mm, which left more than 60mm of static bump-stop clearance that was more than enough to ensure there was no bottoming-out on our test route.

Its ample torque made light work of hauling this payload in city, suburban and highway driving as well as our 13 per cent gradient, 2.0km-long set climb at 60km/h, which it easily cleared in third gear.

Engine braking on the way down, in a manually-selected second gear, wasn’t as robust but within expectations given the one-tonne-plus payload it was trying to restrain.

We also tested what we safely could of the HiAce’s latest safety upgrades in road use, which all worked as intended. The ‘lane trace assist’ function when using adaptive cruise control was outstanding, as it resolutely kept the vehicle centred in its lane even around curved stretches of multi-lane highway, without the driver needing to intervene.

The HiAce comes with a fresh maximum five-star ANCAP rating awarded in 2025 and a top-tier Platinum rating in ANCAP’s commercial van collision avoidance assessment. Both rankings are courtesy of the latest safety upgrades, which enhance the HiAce’s existing suite of features that includes AEB with pedestrian and daytime cyclist detection, speed sign recognition, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera and lots more.

The airbag count runs to eight - dual front, side chest, side head, centre and driver's knee.

GAC covers this electric hatch with an eight-year and unlimited kilometre warranty, while the brand’s “magazine battery 2.0” is covered by a separate eight-year and 200,000km warranty. Five years of roadside assistance is included.

The Aion UT needs to be serviced once a year or 15,000km. The service price schedule extends all the way out to 240,000km with yearly visits costing between $199 and $640 but for the life of the warranty the average yearly cost comes in at $352.

There are currently 19 GAC dealers in Australia, confined mainly to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with a single store in Perth and an outlier in Cairns. No representation yet in Tassie, Canberra, the Northern Territory or SA.

The HiAce is covered by Toyota's five-year/unlimited km warranty which is in line with competitors like the Ford Transit Custom and Hyundai Staria Load but lags behind the LDV Deliver 7's seven-year term.

Scheduled servicing is a relatively short six months/10,000km interval, whichever occurs first. Capped price for the first 10 scheduled services up to five years/100,000km totals $3650, which is $365 per service or $730 annually.

Toyota currently has 275 dealers across its vast Australian network located in metro, rural and regional areas. Toyota dealerships are also service centres.