If the GWM Tank 300 appeals to you, check out the latest addition to the Tank range which is a version with a plug-in hybrid driveline. CarsGuide recently tested the new Tank 300 and recorded fuel consumption of 8.5 litres per 100km in the sort of rural driving you’ve described. That’s hardly a guzzler considering the Tank 300 is a very capable off-roader and will take the rough stuff easily in its stride.

Even better is that you can charge the Tank up overnight and get something like the first 100km of your journey on electricity alone, meaning you’d only be running the petrol engine for half of your daily round trip.

I’ll presume you mean the indicator stalk which uses a soft touch to indicate a lane change, and a firmer push to keep the indicators on until a turn has been made. There’s also some confusion when trying to cancel the indicators manually, and inadvertently indicating the wrong way. Plenty of people have complained about this, and some owners don’t seem to ever get used to it. That said, drivers of other models rarely find this setup to be a problem.

I checked with GWM who told me that there were no plans to make any changes to the indicator system on the current model Tank 300. The vehicle passes all safety standards for Australia and there’s no problem with the system that would require a safety recall or any other intervention. However, this feedback has reached GWM and – though nobody at GWM has said so – I wouldn’t be surprised if the next incarnation of the Tank 300 has a different indicator stalk system.

This message will sometimes be seen in the Tank 300 when the battery charge drops below 12.5 volts. This can happen for a range of reasons, which can include that the key fob is too close to the car when it’s not being used (believe it or not). So don’t leave the key anywhere near the car when you’re not driving and see if that helps.

Other causes are accessories like dashcams that are either wired incorrectly or are not playing nice with the Tank’s body computer. You could try to disconnect the car’s battery overnight which may reset the computer to factory settings, but this seems like a pretty common fault with the Tank 300.

Being such a new car, the problem should not be the battery itself, but it would still be worth having it checked as well as the charging system to make sure there’s no problem there.