Episode 77; Quick Charge Honda Super-One Priced, Model Y L Leads July and Stockman Gets Aussie Tuning

Honda has confirmed a $36,900 drive-away price for its tiny Super-One electric hatch, but with fewer than 130 cars expected this year and substantially cheaper rivals already available, value could be its biggest challenge.

Tesla records its strongest Australian July result as the six-seat Model Y L outsells the regular Model Y, while Chery recruits Premcar to test and tune the Stockman diesel plug-in hybrid ute for Australian conditions.

We also cover Coles putting electric prime movers onto B-double freight routes, Leapmotor’s new B03 electric hatch, Lepas planning another EV and PHEV small car, Geely launching an Amazon virtual showroom and major Farizon electric van price cuts.

YOUTUBE TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Intro
00:56 Honda Super-One priced from $36,900
03:11 Tesla Model Y L leads record July
06:23 Chery Stockman gets Australian tuning
07:57 Coles launches electric B-double routes
11:37 Leapmotor B03 officially revealed
13:57 Lepas plans EV and PHEV hatchback
15:46 Geely puts the EX2 on Amazon
17:13 Farizon cuts electric van prices
19:15 Outro

Disclaimer:

All specifications, pricing, and information discussed in this episode were correct at the time of recording. The electric vehicle market moves quickly, so we recommend you always check the latest details directly with manufacturers, dealers, or official sources.

This podcast provides general news and information only, based on publicly available sources and Australian Consumer Law guidelines. It is not legal, financial, or professional advice. For advice specific to your situation, please contact the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) or seek independent professional guidance.

Plugged in Australia and its hosts are not responsible for any decisions, misunderstandings, or purchases made based on the content of this show.

Sourcing & Transparency

At Plugged in Australia, all our stories are sourced from publicly available news articles and reports. We do not receive any advance information or briefings from brands or manufacturers.

Any analysis or opinions we share are based solely on this public information.

Our main sources include (though we also use many others, and they vary by episode):

• https://www.carsales.com.au/
• https://www.carexpert.com.au/
• https://thedriven.io/
• https://www.carsguide.com.au
• https://autotalk.com.au
• https://www.carsguide.com.au
• https://evcentral.com.au
• https://www.drive.com.au

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

G'day, welcome to Plugged in Australia Quick Charge, the shorter version of the show for when you well, the main EV news without the full deep dive, and this is episode 77 for Wednesday, the 5th of August, 2026. We've had a very full-on week so far this week, our third episode for the week, and the the news stories that just they ain't stopping. This one uh was very difficult to try and compress into a quick charge, I'll tell you that. So Hunda has confirmed Australian pricing for its first local electric car. Tesla has recorded its strongest July result as the six-seat Model YL takes the lead, and Cherry has recruited one of Australia's best-known vehicle engineering companies to test and tune the Stockman plugin hybrid U. We also have electric B double freight routes, uh more affordable electric hatchbacks, and an unusual way to shop for a Geerly, major electric van price cuts, and two premium electric SUVs moving closer to Australian roads. Let's get into it. Honda has confirmed its Super One electric hatch will cost $36,900 drive away in a standard colour or $37400 with a two-tone paint finish. Customer deliveries are scheduled to begin on the 1st of October, although availability will be extremely limited. Honda says it has received more than 6,500 expressions of interest, but fewer than 130 vehicles are expected to reach Australia during 2026. But boost mode temporarily lifts that to 70kW and 162 Nm. Boost Mode also activates simulated gear changes and synthetic engine sounds, giving the little Honda a little bit more personality than you would normally expect from an Urban EV. Honda is advertising up to 253km of driving range locally, although a 206km WLTP combined figure has also appeared in published documentation. The difference appears to come down to the testing method, so buyers will need to check that they are comparing equivalent range figures. Charging from 15 to 80% is claimed to take around 30 minutes on a suitable DC charger. Honda's flexible magic seat system is also included, allowing the rear seat bases to fold upwards for tall items or the seat backs to fold down for additional luggage space. Anybody who remembers the old Honda Jazz had those magic seats, pretty cool, pretty cool little things. The difficult part is going to be the price. The BYD at O1 starts at $23.99 before on-road costs, while promotional driveway pricing has placed the Hyundai Insta close to the Super One. Honda is clearly positioning this as a characterful and relatively premium city car rather than the cheapest possible EV. It includes a 5-year unlimited kilometre warranty, 5 years of roadside assistance, and 5 scheduled services priced at $199 each. But at nearly $37,000 drive away, buyers will have to place considerable value on the Honda badge, its unusual personality, and the clever interior. Tesla has recorded its strongest Australian July result, delivering $4,778 vehicles compared with just $917 during July last year. Now that represents more than a five-fold year-on-year increase, and it is particularly notable because July falls at the beginning of a new quarter. Traditionally, it's acquired a point in Tesla's uneven delivery cycle. The Model Y family accounted for almost the entire result: 4,644 vehicles. For the first time, the Electric Vehicle Council has separated the six-seat Model Y L from the regular Model Y in its monthly figures, giving us a much clearer idea of how the new variant is performing. Tesla delivered 2,429 examples of the longer Model Y L compared with 2,215 regular five-seat Model Ys. That means the six-seat version accounted for just over half of all Model Y deliveries during the month and was Tesla's best-selling individual variant. The Model 3 contributed only 134 deliveries, down 63% from 362 in July of last year. So while Tesla's overall result was extremely strong, the recovery remains overwhelmingly dependent on the Model Y rather than being spread evenly across the range. Tesla and Polestar together reported 4,921 battery electric deliveries during July, more than four times their combined results for the same month last year. Across the first seven months of 2026, combined Tesla and Polestar deliveries reached 29,711, up just over 80% compared with the same period in 2025. These figures only cover Tesla and Polestar, which report separately through the Electric Vehicle Council, so they shouldn't be mistaken for Australia's complete electric vehicle sales result, which we will be getting imminently with the VFAX figures. And once we get those, we will definitely be covering that. Even with that qualification, the Model Y L result is reasonably significant. We recently covered the arrival of the Model Y L in Australian inventory, but July gives us the first strong indication that buyers are not merely interested in the six-seat version, they're actually taking delivery of it in volume. In longer its longer body, 2 plus 2 plus 2 seating layer and second row captains chairs address one of the largest gaps in Tesla's Australian range, a practical vehicle for families needing more than 5 seats, and would appear that the issue with the car seats in the second row isn't seeming to make an impact there. So pricing starts at $74,900 before on-road costs and offers up to 681 kilometres of claimed WLTP range on the 19-inch wheels. It also introduces vehicle-to-load capability to the Australian Tesla range with the ability to supply up to 3.3 kilowatts to external appliances. There are larger and more conventional three-row electric SUVs available, but cost substantially more. Pretty much double almost for quite a few of them. That combination of six seats, long claimed range, and comparatively accessible pricing appears to have given Tesla a product that meets a genuine gap in the Australian EV market. Cherry has recruited Australian engineering company Premcar to conduct local testing and validation work on the upcoming Stockman plugin hybrid U. The programme will assess the vehicle's ride and handling, tuning across a variety of Australian conditions before customer deliveries begin. The Stockman remains scheduled to launch during the fourth quarter of 2026, meaning sometime between October and December. More recently, Premcar has developed the locally enhanced Nissan Navarra Warrior Range. It's worked on the Y-62 Patrol and helped create an Australian suspension tune for the latest Navarra. That experience really will come in handy because Australian Ute buyers have particularly high expectations around ride quality, steering, towing behaviour, durability, and performance on our fantastic road surfaces. Cherry has not explained exactly how extensive the Stockman testing program will be, and Premcar is not being asked to completely redesign the vehicle or anything like that. Its role is to test and validate whether Cherry's existing ride and handling targets work properly under Australian conditions. It's a pretty important distinction. This is not necessarily a Premcar modified flagship in the same sort of mould as the Navarra Warrior, but it does mean an experienced Australian engineering team will examine how the stockman behaves before it reaches local customers. And Coles is expanding its electric vehicle trials into heavy freight, introducing three Volvo electric prime movers into its New South Wales distribution network. The trucks will be operated in partnership with S2 Logistics and will transport products from suppliers into Coles distribution centres. Importantly, they are capable of pulling B double trailer combinations. That moves the trial beyond the relatively straightforward task of using an electric truck for short urban deliveries. B Double Freight places significantly greater demands on a vehicle because of the higher combined mass, longer operating hours, and strict delivery schedules involved. Coles expects each electric prime mover to avoid the use of more than 20,000 litres of diesel annually compared with an equivalent truck. That is expected to prevent more than 60 tonnes of tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions per vehicle per year across all three trucks. That project could therefore avoid more than 60,000 litres of diesel and approximately 180 tonnes of tailpipe CO2 emissions annually, depending on how the trucks are ultimately deployed. There's pretty meaningful figures, but the operational information collected during the trial could prove even more important than the headline emissions reduction. Coals and S2 logistics will need to understand how the trucks perform with genuine freight loads and normal commercial time pressures. That includes things like energy consumption at different payloads, the effective route gradients, charging times, driver schedules, and whether the vehicles can complete their allocated work without disrupting the broader supply chain. Charging an electric prime mover also requires much more planning than charging an electric passenger car. A truck that comes back to the depot for several hours between shifts may be relatively easy to integrate with depot charging. A vehicle operating continuously or covering longer routes with very short turnaround times could require substantially more powerful infrastructure or charges along the way to make it work. Payloads another important consideration. Large batteries add weight, and any reduction in the freight a truck can legally carry can affect productivity and the economics of the entire production. The supplied information does not identify the precise Volvo model or its battery capacity, charging power, daily route distance, or the effect on available payloads, so those will be important details to watch as that trial develops. What makes this project particularly useful is that the trucks are being placed into genuine supply chain work rather than completing a one-off demonstration run. Now they didn't confirm the payloads or anything like that, as I said, and there were a few pictures released with that press release that uh showed the truck but only had a single trailer on it, making it a semi rather than a B double. So, uh and the way that it was worded was that it's along B double routes, not necessarily towing B double. So if they're just running semis, that's a little bit less weight, but if this on the B double routes, so obviously B double trucks can't just, you know, drive down uh Martin Street in the city. You've got uh specific routes that you're allowed to use. So I guess they're trialling the routes, um, but with slightly less payload according to the images that I was able to see. So just thought I'd sort of insert that there. So if electric prime movers can perform reliably on carefully selected routes within that network, the company will have a much stronger basis for deciding where the technology can be expanded. So this trial should help identify where battery electric prime movers are already commercially workable and where the vehicles' charging infrastructure or freight schedules still need a little bit of improvement. Elite Motor has unveiled another compact electric hatchback that could eventually join Australia's increasingly competitive, affordable EV market. The new model is called the A05S in China, but is expected to use the B03 name in international markets. It sits below the larger B05 hatch, which is already confirmed for Australia, and is essentially the passenger car counterpart to the B03X compact electric SUV. Now neither the B03 nor the B03X has been formally confirmed for Australian sale, although ADR applications have already been lodged for the B03X. The B03 measures 4,175mm long, 1,790mm wide, and 1590mm tall, sitting on a 2605mm wheelbase. Now that makes it longer than a Toyota Yaris, that's shorter than a Corolla, sort of placing it in between the Gili EX2 and the BYD Dolphin in overall length. Despite being one of Leap Motors' smaller and potentially more affordable models, it uses the company's newer Leap 3.5 platform. That brings an 800 volt electric architecture, upgraded thermal management, cell-to-chassis battery integration, and independent multi-link rear suspension. Those are unusually sophisticated foundations for a vehicle expected to compete near the lower end of the EV market on price. Chinese versions are expected to offer a choice of two front-wheel drive powertrains. Entry-level version combines a 70kW and 150Nm motor with a 39.8 kWh lithium-iron phosphate battery, and a longer range version will use a 90kW and 150Nm motor with a larger 53kWh battery. European models are expected to receive considerably more powerful motors, producing either 130 or 145kW, and both developing about 200 Nm of torque. The full Chinese pricing and specifications have not yet been released, and Leak Motor Australia has not committed to bringing the B03 here. The company's immediate priorities are the larger B05 Hatch and the B03 X SUV. But with the GLE EX2, BYD Z01 and the BYD Dolphin helping establish a new affordable EV category, a small hatchback price somewhere in the mid-2000 mark could make considerable sense for Leap Motor. Cherry's new Leapass brand is preparing to enter a part of the Australian market that many manufacturers have been abandoning. Leapass plans to introduce an all-new small hatchback by the end of 2027, with both fully electric and plug-in hybrid powertrain options expected. The unnamed model is being positioned against established small cars, including the Toyota Corolla, Mazda 3, and the Kia K4. Now no battery sizes, performance figures, dimensions, or pricing have been announced, and the vehicle itself has not yet been publicly revealed. So you're probably thinking, What are you what are you talking about then? There's nothing. You just took out everything out of it, but the Cherry Motor Australia management has seen an early pre-production version, so it does exist, and describes it as a sporty and attractive small car. The company says Lipest will use bright colours, bold exterior treatments, and a more decisive interior to separate the brand from Cherry's more sort of conservative offerings. The decision to develop a conventional hatchback is interesting because Australia's small passenger car segment has fallen pretty dramatically. Its share reportedly dropped to a record low of just 4.7% last month as buyers continued moving into small and medium SUVs, and that decline has not stopped Chinese brands from gradually rebuilding the affordable electric hatch market. Things like the MG4, the BYD Dolphin that are already here, while the Leap Motor B05, the GAC AonUT, Jilly EX2, and the BYD at O1 are creating even more competition at the lower end of the market. Leapass is expected to arrive in Australia later this year with the Electric L6 SUV, followed by the smaller L4. The hatchback remains much further away, but offering both EV and plug-in hybrid versions could give it a broader audience than most of its Chinese rivals. Or if uh you've got Prime there, you can get same-day delivery. The actual purchase still takes place through GLE's Dealer Network. The partnership also includes interactive advertising through Prime Video, which can direct viewers to the online showroom while they're watching some content. GLE says the project is intended to reach customers through platforms they already use, and the company plans to expand its presence across other online channels. The timing coincides with the EX2's official Australian launch. The entry level EX2 complete is $26,490 before on-road costs, while the better equipped Inspire is $30,990. We've already covered the car and its specs quite in detail, so I won't go into that again. But for a relatively new brand competing in one of the most crowded parts of the EV market, putting the EX2 in front of Amazon and Prime Video users could help it reach people who would never normally visit a Gili website or dealership. Verizon has reduced pricing across its SV electric van range by as much as 8.5 grand, making the purpose-built commercial EV more competitive against electric vans from LDV and Ford. The short wheelbase low roof model now starts at $62,990 before on-road costs, following an $8.50 reduction. The long wheelbase low roof version falls by $8.5 as well, and that falls to $64.9.90, while the long wheelbase high roof model receives a $7,000 reduction and is now priced from $69.490. Verizon has also expanded the range with a new super long wheelbase high roof version. That one is priced from $77.490. This new flagship is $505mm longer than the existing Longwheel base and offers 13 cubic meters of cargo space. It uses a larger 106 kWh nickel manganese cobalt battery, providing up to 398 km of claimed WLTP range. That's 79km more than the existing Longwheel base high roof model, which uses an 83 kWh lithium-iron phosphate battery. So different chemistry. Every SV uses a front mount electric motor, producing 170kW 336Nm. The vans support 11 kW three-phase AC charging and DC charging add up to 140kW and 3.3 kW vehicle to load outlets for powering tools or equipments. Electric vans still cost more upfront than many equivalent diesel and petrol models. However, these price reductions, combined with the additional range and cargo capacity of the new flagship, make the SV a little bit more realistic option for fleets, couriers and trades operating more predictable daily routes with access to depot, workplace charging, or even home charging. That's a wrap for episode 77 of Plugged in Australia Quick Charge. As always, I thank you very much for listening and hope you learned something there. We will have the deep dive episode towards the end of the week. I will be including a couple of stories from this Quick Charge as well as the other ones that we've already done this week, and any other ones we might do depends on what sort of stories. But at the rate we're going, we're going to be doing uh quick charge episodes every day. So this one's definitely on the longer side of the quick charge. I like to try and keep them to 10 to 15 minutes. So we'll see. I think we're gonna end up sort of closer to the 20 minute mark on this. As always, if you have any feedback, info at plugged in australia.com.au. Until the next time, stay plugged in and stay charged. Cheer with the ammo.