GWM Tank 500 review and buyer’s guide
If you think Great Wall Motors can come along and offer a cut-price Toyota Prado on its first attempt, there are some glaring issues you need to consider before dropping your money on this LandCruiser lookalike.
The GWM Tank 500 sounds like a bargain too good to be true: a Toyota LandCruiser Prado, with all its off-roading prowess and family-carrying capability, for the price of a medium SUV.
To the outside observer, a typical consumer like you perhaps, it’s all pretty cordial in the car industry. But there’s currently a geo-economical war being fought between the Japanese and South Korean brands, and the Chinese brands.
And the latter seems to be approaching at 6 o’clock - and hot.
In roughly half the time it took South Korea’s Hyundai and Kia to catch up to the likes of Japan’s Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda and Subaru, the Chinese brands are doing to both. Now, the Great Wall Motors company, which prefers to be called GWM (but takes one extra syllable to pronounce), has gone after one of Toyota’s most prized models.
The new Prado is in its fifth generation, but the also-new GWM Tank 500 is in its first generation and is already, tangibly, quite far along in its progression toward matching the Japanese build quality, and the fit and finish, of the Toyota.
If Hyundai or Kia had produced the Tank 500 today, most of the automotive industry would think these brands had gone backwards. But in 2025, the playing field, so to speak, is no longer level, thanks to China’s industrial might.
Lots of Japan and South Korea’s car brands and their respective models use parts manufactured in China, and those that are made in-country, do not have the same potential labour force as mainland China.
Even some of the more aesthetically laughable aspects of early Chinese cars, such as the first attempt at the GWM Steed, the G10 and the Haval H6 et al. were the kinds of objects one might scare children with in public. But today, the Tank 500 looks okay. As in, it’s not terrible. It looks American; tough and imposing...
It looks like it was designed and sculpted using clay models - by human beings — with eyes.
FEATURES & PRICING
With only two model grades to choose from, GWM has effectively removed the whole ‘burden of choice’ aspect from conventional brands.
Where someone like Mazda or Mitsubishi might make you walk through four or five different tiers of vehicle, then figure out which features are available at that pricepoint, with the Tank 500 it’s dead easy.
Do you want everything, or just the essentials? Of course in asking such a question you’re really deciding if you want all the toys, or are you happy with the quantifiably loaded base model (which is far from base).
Here’s what you get and what it costs:
Lux $66,500 approx. driveaway
INTERIOR
Wireless Charger
Faux leather steering wheel & Faux leather seats
Front seats: Heated
Front row 12V Power Outlet
Second row 12V Power Outlet
Luggage cover
Luggage tie down points
Electronic Clock
3-zone climate control + 2nd row A/C control
8-Way Power Adjustable + 4-way adjustable lumbar support Driver Seat Adjustment • • Front Passenger Seat: 4-Way Electric Adjustment
14.6 inch Infotainment Touchscreen
DAB+ Digital Radio
Front and rear USB Type A + Type C
8 speakers
Wireless Apple CarPlay + Android Auto
HARDWARE
Steering mode adjustment + Dynamic torque steering
Rear Differential Lock (Electric)
Low Range with Center diff lock
Launch Control
Driving Mode (Eco, Normal, Sports, Snow, Sand,Rock, Mud, Auto, Expert) + 4H/4L
Off-Road Cruise Control(CCO)
Manual Tailgate
Side steps - fixed
Automatic windscreen wipers
Roof rails
Sunroof - Electric
Trailer Power Outlet
Under carriage protection
Paddle Shifter
DRIVING
Tyre pressure monitoring system
3rd-row camera monitor
360-degree camera system with see-through chassis view
Front & rear parking sensors
Auto folding, heated, electrically adjusted door mirrors
12.3 inch LCD driver’s display screen
Speed sensing volume
Ultra $74,000 approx. driveaway
Adds to the ‘Lux’ grade’s features:
Soft close manual tailgate
Retractable side steps (electric)
Front differential lock (electric)
Heated steering wheel
3-zone climate control (incl. 2nd row A/C controls)
Nappa leather accented seats
Ventilated and massaging front seats with position memory
6-way electrically adjusted front passenger seat
Door mirrors: Position memory with puddle lights
2nd row manual window shades
Active noise cancelling
ENGINE
GWM Australia has an entire double-page spread in its Tank 500 brochure dedicated to the words:
Powered by a direct-injection 2.0 litre turbo four-cylinder petrol-electric engine, with a combined power output of 255kW and 648Nm of torque
If you only looked at the headline figures, it would be easy to think the 255kW 2-litre hybrid powertrain, with its 78kW AC electric motor powered by a tiny 1.76kWh, has dollops of grunt just one press of the accelerator away. Except it doesn’t.
That battery is smaller than an MG3’s 1.8kWh battery, and it’s a smidge bigger than the Corolla hybrid’s 1.6kWh unit. Only in the Tank 500, living up to its name, that teensy battery powering that powerful electric motor, has to move 2605kg of kerb weight - and that’s completely unladen. It’s 150kg (6 per cent) heavier than a Ford Everest Sport V6 diesel.
The Everest V6 makes 180kW and puts out 600Nm of torque to throw its bulk up the road, from just 1750-2200 revs. It’s a powerhouse. But on its own, the Tank 500’s pipsqueak petrol engine manages that peak 180kW, but it’s all the way up at 5500 RPM while only making 380Nm of torque from 1700-4000 revs. It has to work twice as hard to make 57 per cent less grunt.
This would be okay if there was always going to be helpings of torque from the battery-motor side of the powertrain. Admittedly, the electric motor does offer 268Nm of torque on its own, giving the overall combined 648Nm. That’s enough to make up for the lack of torque coming from the petrol engine seen when comparing with Everest. But there’s a problem.
Once you start using your claimed 790kg payload capacity, that battery is quickly going to be depleted before the already hard-working 2-litre petrol engine is having to recharge the battery. That’s energy that could’ve otherwise been used simply to drive the wheels owing to the second law of thermodynamics which says every time you do a process, you lose available energy.
But okay, the advantage is you get torque down low. That’s fine if you’re camping and need to get out of the tracks, but you’ll want to take additional petrol with you on longer trips and keep it stored safely.
If, however, you’re more likely going to be a city dweller, where you’ll do plenty of stop-start driving in the suburbs and metro traffic areas, the battery is naturally going to get plenty of regenerative braking opportunities for kinetic energy recovery.
So if you’re out in rural Australia for a prolonged period of time, like a day or two, where the roads are typically long and the loads are constant - with minimal regen opportunity - it’s going to be consuming additional fuel in order to top up the battery.
This is potentially one of the main causes for some of the surprisingly high fuel consumption claims made by other motoring media outlets. If the engine has to burn fuel to charge the battery to drive the wheels, that’s probably what’s causing it.
When the battery is substantially charged, the whole powertrain does work well for tracking through sloppy mud, moderately steep gradients and the electric motor offers desirable low-RPM power (torque) to push you along without bursting into wheelspin too early.
It’s also important to consider that this is very new vehicle in terms of longevity of the critical engine components. Hyundai might use its 1.6-litre turbo-petrol hybrid unit in the Santa Fe, but that vehicle offers a substantially lower official towing capacity, and, more importantly, that powertrain has been in multiple models going back nearly 10 years. Hyundai has baked in the R&D long ago and had countless millions (billions?) of kilometres of in-service experience with the powertrain.
We’ve never seen the Tank 500 before 2024 and we haven’t even seen GWM honour its full 7-year warranty term yet (8 years on the battery). To suggest such a highly strung petrol engine is going to last that full term is questionable, at best.
There’s a good reason to wait at least 12 months before buying into the first iteration of an entirely new model.
TRANSMISSION
Without being revolutionary in transmissions, the 9-speed epicyclic automatic functions pretty well and doesn’t have any obvious operational flaws. It’s not the smoothest to downshift, but is balanced out by slick up-changes.
The BorgWarner low-range transfer case works quite seamlessly and its ability to engage the front and rear differential locks is politician-level simple to do. Clearly this is the innovation of the German transmission specialist selling this component to GWM, but credit to GWM’s engineers for not poorly executing it.
There can also be some minor clunking when changing gears while also switching between the electric motor and the petrol engine.
What remains to be seen however, is how it fairs with towing.
TOWING
Nobody has done much with the Tank 500 in terms of significant tow testing given the relative newness of the vehicle, and presumably, GWM Australia not supplying vehicles with towbars. Certainly there aren’t many reviews out there where you’ll see a towbar hanging out the back of the Tank 500 press loan vehicle.
What goes without saying is that the fuel economy will tumble on a vehicle that is already claiming 30-40 per cent better figures than what’s being experienced on most mainstream media reviews. That’s slightly higher than the 20-30 per cent typically allowed on manufacturer certified combined cycle bench test results.
But what we don’t know is how the Tank 500 responds to gradients, selecting gears based on the additional load and driver inputs. Transmissions have a tendency to hunt for the ideal gear if not calibrated properly, and petrol engines have a habit of revving very hard to make modest headway (at least compared with diesel engines).
GWM doesn’t quote rear axle loads, but with a 3000kg braked towing capacity, that would mean potentially 300kg of towball download, which we also cannot confirm because it’s not stated.
For perspective, a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport GSR has 1600kg of rear axle load limit with (almost) the same 3100kg towing capacity and 310kg towball download limit - and is also a ladder frame chassis ute platform using rear coil springs.
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INTERIOR
The inside of the Tank 500 is far more impressive than what they’ve clearly tried to copy from other brands on the outside, such as the big chrome RAM 1500 grille and headlights, the Toyota LandCruiser profile and the 150 Series Prado’s rear barndoor tailgate and spare tyre arrangement.
For the price, the Tank 500’s interior is genuinely impressive, overall. An equivalently price Everest Sport is getting partial leather, and the new Prado GXL wants another $6000 before you get the faux leather. The outgoing Pajero Sport GSR, it must be said, is rocking full leather for roughly $8000 less and its interior is built just as solidly - probably better, actually.
The analogue dashboard clock is the centrepiece and adds a classy touch to what is otherwise a decent attempt to blend minimalistic current-age touchscreens in the centre and driver’s display.
The 12-inch panoramic driver’s display screen gets little-to-no form of binnacle or shroud to protect it from morning or afternoon reflection from the glaring sun, and yet it is recessed into the dashboard anyway - meaning it gets about 10mm of leather overhang, but its not nearly enough. They clearly could have given it some kind of baseball cap style shading.
Nor does the enormous centre 14-inch touchscreen do anything other than dominate the cabin and kind of clashes with the elegance of the clock and brushed woodgrain-like facia panelling.
However, using the screen is quite the lesson for other car companies in terms of lagging software. You touch an icon or toggle something on/off - it happens almost instantly.
The seats appear reasonably comfortable and there’s the choice of faux leather in its entirety, or the Nappa leather accents in key areas - not on the entire seat covering, however.
The rest of the switchgear, the centre console, the glove box lid - it all feels sturdy and solid.
The entry-level sound system is pretty rubbish, lacks bass and sounds tinny overall, but this is about as bad as it gets.
FUNCTIONALITY
The turning circle is excellent at 11.2 metres kerb to kerb That’s dead even with the Pajero Sport, and beats the Everest’s 11.8 and new Prado’s 12 metres respectively.
GWM claims 1459 litres with all rear seats collapsed, and with only the third row collapsed there’s 795 litres of volume, which is a 293-litre advantage over the 502 litres in a Pajero Sport. But the Tank won’t beat the 898 litres available in the Ford Everest with row three collapsed.
But with row 3 deployed, you’re only going to get a few groceries back there with just 98 litres of quoted volume. That’s 30 per cent less than the Pajero Sport and 160 per cent less than the Everest’s 259 litres.
Happily, there’s that full-sized spare wheel bolted to the rear barndoor which means it’s always within easy access and protected from the elements.
As for passenger legroom, the Tank 500 has virtually the same wheelbase length as Everest, Pajero Sport and Prado, meaning they’re all going to have pretty much the same amount of space to stretch legs.
The automatically retracting and extending side steps are actually a pretty innovative thing on such an affordable 4X4 wagon. They certainly aren’t available on any of its major rivals like LandCruiser (Sahara that cost s$130K), Ford Everest, MU-X or even the new Prado (at $100K now).
We’ve seen them before on the American pick-up trucks - but they’re asking over $100-200,000 and are almost certain to be less reliable than these ones on the Tank.
The third row of seats are extremely cramped, and when you do eventually fold them down flat, possibly even the second row to perhaps move house or carry home some awkwardly large object, the seats don’t actually fold flat. There’s a noticeable slant that slopes rearward toward the barndoor.
So watch in case things slide backwards and fall out the door when you open it having been tempted with all that torque on offer from standstill.
DRAWBACKS
There are three primary drawbacks with the Tank 500.
We simply don’t know if this is a product GWM is going to support, properly, for the next seven years. In the last seven years, we’ve seen Kia honour its seven-year warranty to which much of the other brands have either tried to copy, or at least emulated.
GWM has come and gone in the past, their vehicles have been poorly made, historically, and even as recently as the Tank 300 with its underdone suspension which bucked rear wheels under heavy braking - it’s too early to tell if the Tank 500 is a winner.
Certainly, and to be fair, GWM has made massive strides in terms of build quality. This is, without doubt, the most impressive vehicle they’ve launched in Australia to date, and it seems like a relatively capable off-roader - if not lacking pedigree and a track record of robust, tough build quality.
The second drawback with the Tank 500 is GWM itself. This is a very new product that has barely been on sale a full year yet.
In our ultra-competitive market, where the Tank 500 only sold as many units as the SsangYong Rexton in 2024 and the outgoing Pajero Sport sold over 5000 units with its proven 10 years of reliability, it remains to be seen if GWM can stick the landing - commercially.
Having said that and to be fair again to GWM, they did just crack the top 10 brand sales for 2024 according to VFACTs sales data provided by the FCAI. That’s over 42,000 units in 2024 for this emerging brand, pushing the likes of Volkswagen, LDV and Honda further into irrelevance.
The last big drawback with buying a GWM product, let alone the Tank 500 (a vehicle which encourages you to drive off into the sunset of some remote Australian backwater), is that there simply aren’t many dealerships and therefore technical support.
Roll into any regional provincial town like Bathurst, Cairns, Alice Springs, Port Augusta, Esperance, Albany, Mt Isa, Rockhampton - there’s generally a Toyota, Ford, Mazda and Mitsubishi dealership.
In fact there’s over 300 Toyota dealerships in Australia - the single biggest franchised dealer network. Ford and Mitsubishi both have more than 200, but GWM has only managed to sprout about 60. In terms of getting technical support in the remotest parts of Australia, the bigger brands offer more coverage… for now.
MAIN COMPETITORS
FORD EVEREST SPORT | $81,000 driveaway approx. | 3L V6 diesel
Power-to-weight ratio: 76kW per tonne
Length 4940 mm | Width 1923 mm | Height 1841 mm
Wheelbase 2900 mm
Kerb weight 2455 kg | Payload 703 kg
Gross vehicle mass 3150 kg | Gross combination mass 6250 kg
Approach angle 30 degrees | Departure angle 25 degrees | Breakover angle 21 degrees
Ground clearance 229 | Wading depth 800
TOYOTA PRADO GXL | $87,500 driveaway approx. | 2.8L 4-cyl turbo-diesel
Power-to-weight ratio: 60kW per tonne
Length 4990 mm | Width 1980 mm | Height 1925 mm
Wheelbase 2850 mm
Payload TBC | Tare Mass 2475 kg
Gross Vehicle Mass 3150 kg | Gross Combination Mass TBC
Towing Capacity (braked) 3500 kg | Towball download TBC
Wading Depth 800 | Ground Clearance 229
MITSUBISHI PAJERO SPORT GSR | $68,000 driveaway approx. | 2.4L 4-cyl turbo-diesel
Power-to-weight ratio: 62kW per tonne
Length 4825 mm | Width 1815 mm | Height 1835 mm
Wheelbase 2800 mm
Payload 657 kg | Kerb weight 2118 kg
Gross Vehicle Mass 2775 kg | Gross Combination Mass 5565 kg
Towing capacity (braked) 3100 kg
Wading depth 700mm | Ground clearance 218mm
Approach angle 30 degrees | Departure angle 24 degrees | Breakover angle 23 degrees
GWM TANK 500 | $74,000 driveaway approx. | 2L 4-cyl turbo-petrol hybrid
Power-to-weight ratio: 99kW per tonne
Length 5078 mm | Width 1934 mm | Height 1905 mm
Wheelbase 2850 mm
Payload 790 kg | Kerb weight 2605 kg
Gross Vehicle Mass 3395 kg | Gross Combination Mass 6705 kg
Towing capacity (braked) 3000 kg
Wading depth 800mm | Ground clearance 224mm
Approach angle 30 degrees | Departure angle 24 degrees | Breakover angle 22 degrees
CONCLUSION
The Tank 500 is probably not going to survive 10 years of taking you into the Gibson Desert and back, and survive the Big Lap of Australia hitting all the boggiest Cape York swamps and clawing up the most insurmountable High Country goat tracks.
But it’s bloody good first effort. Just imagine what the Tank 500 will be capable of in another generation’s worth of development. Hyundai didn’t get the Terracan this good compared to its peers back in its heyday, and Kia didn’t nail the brief with the Tasman in the same way GWM has with this.
It’s hard to see how this newcomer can possibly sustain the same kind of sustained punishment as the now superseded LandCruiser Prado it tries to emulate, or follow some of those more proven 4X4 wagons into the outback for a prolonged adventure - and come back.
That doesn’t mean it can’t. It just feels like a tough ask until the Tank 500 has some pedigree to its name. In the hands of punters.
When you’re spending a notional $74,000, which could buy you a perfectly good Pajero Sport, Ford Everest, Prado, an Isuzu MU-X or even just an excellent soft-roading 7-seater like the Hyundai Palisade, that’s a big gamble on a vehicle that has arrived, been through a few light motoring reviews at the same old 4X4 test facilities.
The advice here is to just wait. See what happens with the Tank 500 to see if it can tow, go overlanding, and quite importantly, come back in one piece.
You’ve got to admit though… It’s a bloody good price (compared to a LandCruiser). But then again, so is a Pajero Sport.
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