JAC Hunter vs Cavan C1

What's the difference?

While the local motor industry is engaging in much hand wringing and brow furrowing over the rapid influx of new makes and models, experts are busy predicting what may happen in the longer term. What brands will still be here in 10 years? Or even ten months…

It’s a bit of a lottery, really, but in the short term, one thing is for absolute certain: Cars are getting cheaper to buy.

That’s despite a never-before-seen level of technology and sophistication, too, and we’re now seeing full electric vehicles hitting the market at $30,000 or so - a number unheard of just a year or two ago when front-loading an EV’s ownership costs was a given.

But it’s happening in the dual-cab ute world, too. Disruptors like the BYD Shark 6 and the GWM Cannon Alpha have taught us that a turbo-diesel driveline is not necessarily the way forward for all of us. And now there’s this vehicle, the JAC Hunter dual-cab which stretches the concept of fries-with-that across an even tighter budget.

The Hunter is not just an off-road capable dual-cab: It’s also a plug-in hybrid with a sophisticated driveline that offers a claimed 100km of EV-only running from a full battery. But the Hunter is not just a techno statement, it also hits the market at under $50,000.

Interested? So were we.

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.