2026 JAC Hunter PHEV Review

After owning a JAC T9 and giving it the sort of review that probably did not go up on the office fridge, I was genuinely surprised JAC invited me to drive the new Hunter.

I am glad it did, because this is not just a diesel T9 with a battery shoved underneath. The Hunter is a plug-in hybrid dual-cab ute with 360kW, a claimed monster torque figure of 1000Nm, four-wheel-drive intent, front and rear locking differentials on the vehicle I drove, and a starting price promised at under $50,000 before on-road costs.

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That matters. Against the BYD Shark 6, GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV and Ford Ranger PHEV, JAC is clearly trying to win the spreadsheet before anyone has turned a wheel.

But this was also a pre-production drive. The good bits are properly interesting, and some of the bad bits are exactly the sort of things that can make a ute hard to live with if they survive into showrooms.

That is not a small gap. If JAC lands the entry Hunter properly under $50K, it will be asking buyers to accept some brand-risk and polish-risk in exchange for a lot of hardware.

For comparison, the BYD Shark 6 starts from $55,900 plus on-road costs for the entry-level Dynamic Cab-Chassis, ranging up to $62,900 for the top-spec Performance variant

Final local pricing and specification were not confirmed when I drove the car. The JAC website lists Pro and X variants, and the vehicle I drove was a pre-production Hunter X.

2026 JAC Hunter Pricing

• JAC Hunter X $TBC top-spec pre-production vehicle tested

Note: Prices exclude on-road costs.

From the outside, the Hunter still looks closely related to the T9. That is not automatically a problem, because I have always thought the basic shape of the JAC ute was one of its better traits.

The front end has a big, blunt ute face, strong daytime running lights and a proper JAC script across the nose. There are steel bash plates underneath too, which matters because this drivetrain has plenty going on below the skin.

The orange paint on the pre-production car looked suspiciously familiar if you have spent time around Ford’s Cyber Orange. I am not going to pretend it is original, but I also will not pretend it looks bad.

The test car wore 18-inch alloy wheels with Pirelli Scorpion all-terrain tyres. Those tyres are important context, because they helped off-road and were not the final standard road rubber I would expect most buyers to drive on.

There are useful touches, including keyless entry, a good 360-degree camera, roof rails, steel side steps, privacy glass and charging ports on the side. At the rear, the torsion-assisted tailgate is lighter than the old T9’s heavy unit, and the tub liner looked improved in some areas, though I still found rough finishing and a poor spray section that reminded me JAC is not fully out of the woods.

The single biggest cabin improvement is telescopic steering adjustment. That sounds boring, but the old T9’s driving position was a real frustration for me, and the Hunter is immediately easier to settle into.

It is not perfect. The floor still feels high, the seats remain quite flat, and under-thigh support is not generous enough for longer highway stints. Still, I could finally get into a position that did not feel like a compromise from the first minute.

The centre console has changed too. The old shifter is gone, replaced by a rotary selector that feels tactile and oddly premium, although I am not a fan of selectors that spin endlessly without a clear physical stop.

I liked the hard buttons for off-road mode and the locking differentials. I also liked seeing direct access to powertrain modes, because this car can run in EV-focused settings, fuel-priority settings or a more automatic hybrid mode.

The material presentation is better than I expected for the money. There is soft-touch trim, metal-look detailing, metal speaker grilles, a cooled centre console area, a wireless charger, USB-A, a 60W USB-C port, a 12-volt outlet and even a built-in dashcam function using a USB stick.

The screens were not finished. The digital driver display was slow and laggy in my test car, and while the central screen has useful energy management, charging, regen and V2L menus, the software needs more polish before production.

The back seat looks better on paper than it feels after time in it. I have spent proper time in the rear of a regular JAC T9, and the same basic ergonomic issue carries through here.

The seat trim feels decent, the cabin presentation is surprisingly nice, and I like that the rear bench can lift up to reveal storage underneath. You can also fold the backrest down to access extra storage and child-seat anchor points.

Rear passengers get air vents, USB-A, USB-C and a household-style socket rated at 150W. That is genuinely useful in a ute aimed at work and family use.

The issue is posture. The battery packaging and high floor leave my legs at a poor angle, toe room is tight, and the seat itself does not offer enough support through the back.

Headroom was fine, and the space is usable, but I would not call it a great second row for long trips. Compared with the way a BYD Shark 6 presents as a more refined family ute inside, the JAC still feels more workmanlike and less resolved.

The practical numbers are strong. JAC quotes a 915kg payload, which is about 200kg more than the BYD Shark 6 and GWM Cannon Alpha figures.

Braked towing capacity is 3500kg, and JAC says that rating is available regardless of battery charge. That is a big claim in this segment, because buyers will not just use these things for school runs and silent commutes.

There is a 77-litre fuel tank, and JAC claims up to 1005km of combined touring range under NEDC conditions. As always with plug-in hybrids, the real-world number will depend heavily on charging habits, load, speed and terrain.

The tub itself is useful, but it is not flawless. The improved liner is less finger-threatening than the one I experienced in my T9, and the lighter tailgate is welcome, but some finishing still looked rough on the pre-production vehicle.

Underneath, the Hunter uses a multi-link rear end rather than the regular T9’s leaf-spring setup. That helps with packaging around the battery and electric hardware, and JAC has still managed to fit a full-size spare under the vehicle.

This is where I need to be careful, because JAC was very clear that the car I drove did not have the final steering and suspension tune. Local work by Michael Barber and Multimatic was still ongoing, and software integration was not finished.

Even with that caveat, the pre-production tune was not good enough. The ride was soft and comfortable in one sense, but the body control was poor, and the ute felt lumpy and loose over typical broken Australian roads.

Through gentle corners, it rolled around more than I would like. The steering was light and vague, and I did not get the confidence I want from a dual-cab that can carry 915kg and tow 3.5 tonnes.

The powertrain was much more convincing. In EV mode it is quiet and easy, and in Auto it blends petrol and electric drive reasonably well. Put it into a more aggressive setting and it becomes properly quick, even if the initial response still needs calibration.

Cabin noise was mixed. I did not hear nasty rattles, but there was more general noise and wind rustle than I would expect from the BYD Shark 6’s more polished cabin experience.

Regenerative braking was fine rather than aggressive, and lane centring was not good in my test car. The driver monitoring and constant beeps also felt like familiar JAC problems that need a serious production fix.

Off-road, the Hunter surprised me in a good way. I did not take it through a brutal torture course, but I did drive steep, loose and muddy sections that were enough to expose weak traction systems pretty quickly.

The test car had multiple modes including normal, all-wheel drive, snow, mud, sand, rock and off-road crawl. It also had front and rear locking differentials, though final grade availability had not been fully confirmed during my drive.

The important caveat is tyres. My car was on Pirelli Scorpion all-terrains, so I cannot pretend the standard road tyre package would behave exactly the same.

Even with that noted, the Hunter climbed impressively. On a steep muddy ascent it walked up with almost no hesitation, and I did not feel the kind of scrambling or wheelspin I would expect from a less serious electrified ute.

The system sits somewhere between a BYD Shark 6 and the more mechanically connected GWM Cannon Alpha-style approach. It does not have a physical front-to-rear link, but it has more real off-road intent than the Shark 6 setup I have experienced.

The off-road cruise control was glitchy in the pre-production car, speeding up and slowing down awkwardly. The fundamentals looked good, but some software polish is still very obviously required.

The JAC Hunter has now been awarded a five-star ANCAP safety rating, with the rating applying to all variants introduced in Australia from April 2026.

According to ANCAP, the Hunter’s rating is based largely on testing of the closely related JAC T9 conducted in 2024, with additional frontal offset and oblique pole testing carried out on the Hunter to confirm battery integrity and the safety of high-voltage electrical systems in plug-in hybrid variants.

Standard safety equipment includes dual frontal, side chest-protecting, side head-protecting and centre airbags, along with autonomous emergency braking, lane support systems, lane keep assist, lane departure warning, emergency lane keeping and advanced speed assistance.

The broader supplied safety suite also lists forward collision warning, driver attention monitoring, blind-spot monitoring, rear collision warning, exit warning, front and rear parking sensors and a surround-view camera.

The 360-degree camera was genuinely good during my drive. In a big ute, especially off-road and in tight urban spaces, that matters more than brochure writers often admit.

The active safety calibration was less convincing. The driver monitoring system was still intrusive, the beeps and bongs were constant, and the lane centring did not inspire confidence.

So while the five-star ANCAP result is a strong outcome for the Hunter on paper, I would still want to spend more time with the final production calibration before giving its real-world safety systems a stronger score.

JAC knows it has to earn trust in Australia. A big part of that pitch is aftersales support, not just a sharp sticker price.

The Hunter is covered by a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, including commercial use. That last part matters for fleets, tradies and small businesses who do not want second-class coverage because the ute is used for work.

JAC also says the Hunter will come with seven years of roadside assistance and seven years of capped-price servicing. Final service pricing was not available at the time of my drive.

Service intervals are listed as 12 months or 15,000km in the supplied reference material, but I would still want to see the final public schedule and pricing before doing the full ownership-cost maths.

There is also a local parts warehouse and a ute-for-ute warranty loan program for cases where warranty repairs leave a vehicle off the road. That is the sort of thing that can matter more than a soft-touch dashboard if your ute earns money.

The Hunter uses a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine, a front electric motor integrated into a four-speed hybrid transmission, and a rear electric motor mounted at the rear axle. The official system output is 360kW.

JAC has quoted 370Nm from the petrol engine, 300Nm from the front motor and 340Nm from the rear motor, with a roughly 1000Nm combined figure discussed around the program. The final production combined torque figure still needs proper confirmation.

The drivetrain layout is interesting. In normal driving it can behave like a rear-drive ute, with the front motor joining when needed, but there is no mechanical propshaft linking the front and rear axles.

The battery is a 31.2kWh LFP pack. JAC claims up to 100km of EV driving on the NEDC cycle, and based on what I saw in the trip computer, a real-world figure somewhere around the high-70s to mid-90s may be possible depending on use.

Performance is properly strong once the system wakes up. In my launch testing the Hunter ran 0-100km/h in 6.46 seconds, but there was a noticeable hesitation before the power surged in hard.

That calibration needs smoothing. Once rolling, though, the Hunter feels properly fast for a ute, and it has a bigger top-end shove than I expected.

Final Australian equipment lists were not confirmed when I drove the Hunter, so I am treating this as provisional rather than locked-in showroom specification.

JAC Hunter Pro

• Expected entry grade for the Hunter range
• Confirmed to start from under $50,000 before on-road costs
• Plug-in hybrid drivetrain with 360kW system output
• 31.2kWh LFP battery
• Up to 100km NEDC EV range
• 3500kg braked towing capacity
• 915kg payload
• Vehicle-to-load capability
• 77-litre fuel tank
• Core active safety suite expected, final breakdown TBC

JAC Hunter X

• Top-spec pre-production vehicle tested
• 18-inch alloy wheels fitted to the test car
• Front and rear locking differentials fitted to the test car
• Sunroof fitted to the test car, final availability TBC
• Keyless entry and start
• 360-degree camera
• Steel side steps fitted to the test car
• Roof rails and privacy glass fitted to the test car
• Large central touchscreen with hybrid energy menus
• Digital driver display
• Wireless phone charging
• USB-A and 60W USB-C charging up front
• Rear air vents, USB-A, USB-C and household-style outlet
• Built-in dashcam function via USB storage
• Spray-in tub liner
• Full-size spare wheel

The JAC Hunter is not finished, and it drove like it was not finished. I cannot ignore the loose body control, vague steering, messy driver-assist calibration and software roughness in the pre-production car.

But I also cannot ignore how much potential is here. A sub-$50,000 plug-in hybrid ute with 360kW, serious EV range potential, 3.5-tonne towing, 915kg payload, V2L, a seven-year warranty and proper off-road hardware is not just background noise.

Compared with the BYD Shark 6, the Hunter feels less refined inside and on-road, but potentially more serious off-road. Compared with GWM’s more hardcore hybrid ute hardware, the JAC looks like it may sit in a more affordable and more efficient middle ground.

That only works if JAC fixes the final tune. If the showroom car drives like this prototype, I would be cautious. If the suspension, steering and software improvements land properly, this could be the first JAC ute I would genuinely tell Australians to put on their shortlist.

For now, my verdict is simple: promising, powerful and cheap enough to be dangerous, but not yet proven.