The 2025 LDV eTerron 9 has been spotted in all of its boxy glory in Sydney just weeks before its official launch in Australia.
The electric ute was spied in the Royal National Park south of Sydney by a member of the BYD Shark Owners Club Australia group on Facebook.
A spokesperson for LDV Australia told CarExpert that both the eTerron 9 – the successor for the pioneering LDV eT60 electric ute – and the related diesel-powered Terron 9 ute remain on target for local release around mid-year.
They said there was no update on release timing, which had originally been scheduled for the first quarter of this year, nor on the progress of the local testing program being undertaken for the Chinese brand’s all-new diesel-powered dual-cab.
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The diesel Terron 9 will be sold alongside – and positioned above – the existing LDV T60 lineup.
The latter remains one of Australia’s cheapest 4×4 dual-cab utes and has just been upgraded for MY25 with more advanced safety tech and a 3500kg braked towing capacity upgrade for all variants.
It’s not clear whether the eTerron 9 you see here is part of the local Terron 9 testing program that started in November 2024, but we can see from its New South Wales number plate (FLC-72S) that it’s one of two Terron 9 vehicles pictured in a press release to announce its commencement late last year.
The other (FLC-72N) was a camouflaged Terron 9 that we understand has since undergone local validation work on its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) including lane-keeping and speed sign recognition functions, as well as its multimedia and battery charging systems.
Known as the Maxus eTerron 9 in China, where it was first revealed last September, the new battery-electric dual-cab was confirmed for release in Australia, as an LDV, in early November 2024.
The Terron 9 is expected to be sold here with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine outputting 164kW of power, matched to both rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive configurations, and with gross vehicle mass (GVM) figures varying between 3320kg and 3500kg.
Both single-motor rear-wheel drive and dual-motor four-wheel drive layouts of the electric eTerron 9 have been approved for Australian roads, developing 200kW and 325kW respectively, which is significantly more than the 130kW rear-drive-only eT60.
The eTerron 9’s electric motors are fed by a 102kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which can provide up to 430km of claimed driving range based on the WLTP test cycle in the dual-motor variant.
It also features vehicle-to-load (V2L) capability, allowing owners to power external appliances and tools, with overseas examples featuring several 2.2kW sockets throughout the vehicle, plus an external 6.6kW connection.
The Terron 9 measures a substantial 5500mm long, 1997mm wide and 1860mm tall on a 3300mm wheelbase, and has 220mm of ground clearance, making it 105mm longer, 97mm wider and 41mm taller than the T60 Max Plus on a 125mm longer wheelbase.
The battery-powered eTerron 9, meantime, features a different grille and headlight treatment but shares identical dimensions to its turbo-diesel sibling,
Government certification documents also show it will offer the same 3500kg braked towing capacity as the Terron 9 – well up on the eT60’s 1000kg limit.
Just as the Terron 9 will be pricier than the three-variant T60 range ($45,253-$53,674 drive-away), which is powered by a 160kW/500Nm 2.0-litre turbo-diesel, the eTerron 9 will be more expensive again.
Pricing and specifications for the LDV Terron 9 and eTerron 9 will be announced closer to each model’s Australian release.
But while LDV says the eTerron 9 will bring improvements over the eT60 across almost every measurable aspect, its mid-2025 arrival will follow a flurry of new plug-in hybrid (PHEV) ute launches in Australia.
These include the BYD Shark 6 PHEV launched earlier this year, the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV launched last month and the Ford Ranger PHEV being launched this month.
Those three plug-in hybrid utes will soon be joined by the JAC T9 PHEV and, potentially, PHEV versions of both the Mitsubishi Triton and next-generation Nissan Navara, as well as a hybridised version of the upcoming Kia Tasman, plus an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) version of the Radar/Riddara RD6, and perhaps the Deepal Hunter K50 EREV.
In terms of all-electric utes, the eTerron 9 is expected to be joined by the Isuzu D-Max EV, Radar RD6 EV, Kia Tasman EV, JAC T9 EV and a bespoke electric Hyundai ute that could be called the T10, among others.
