Chery Stockman: Australia's First Diesel PHEV Ute Gets Its Name, Public Vote Hands the Keys to a Victorian Bloke

Image credit: Chery Australia

If you have been keeping a Stockman on the shortlist of utes worth waiting for, it just got a name. Chery Australia confirmed on 17 June 2026 that the dual-cab project we have all been calling the KP31 will hit local showrooms as the Chery Stockman. Same vehicle, same world-first diesel plug-in hybrid powertrain, same Q4 2026 deliveries, but the badge is now sorted. For ute buyers cross-shopping the BYD Shark 6, the JAC Hunter PHEV and a brand-new Kia Tasman, that name change is the cue to start treating this thing as a real option rather than a Beijing motor show curiosity.

What Actually Changed Today

The launch story has been moving in stages. We covered the interior reveal back in April when Chery showed off the triple-locking-diff cabin and confirmed dimensions slightly longer and taller than a Ford Ranger Wildtrak. The June announcement is purely a naming step, but it matters. It locks in the marketing identity, kicks off the dealer training cycle and clears the path for a real RRP and a real order book. The name was picked through a public competition that pulled in more than 20,000 entries. Chery's team trimmed that to a shortlist of ten, and roughly 12,000 Australians then voted. Stockman cleared 25 per cent of the vote on its own, the largest share of any shortlisted name.

For the record, the eight names Stockman beat were Outrider, Orca, Ironbark, Bushwalker, Longreach, Ridgeback, Terra and Mate. Some of those would have aged better than others in a 4WD club car park, so the public vote arguably did Chery a favour. The winning entry came from Steve Kodikara in Victoria, who takes home a Stockman as his prize. That delivery will be the first one Chery hands over in Australia, which is also the first delivery anywhere in the world.

Powertrain and Specs So Far

Pricing has not landed yet and Chery is sticking to outlines on power and torque until closer to the on-sale date. What is confirmed is enough to slot the Stockman straight into the towing-and-tradie shortlist next to the JAC Hunter Pro and the BYD Shark 6 Premium.

The 2.5-litre turbo-diesel running as the petrol-station-free range extender is the headline. Every other dual-cab PHEV on sale or confirmed here, the Shark 6, the Hunter PHEV, the Cannon Alpha PHEV, the Ranger PHEV, runs a petrol four-cylinder paired with the battery. A diesel-based plug-in hybrid is a genuine world-first, and the obvious appeal for Australian buyers is keeping the fuel-tank story familiar (long-haul diesel range, long-haul diesel torque) while still being able to plug in at home and crawl into work on electrons.

Image credit: Chery Australia

Equipment and Off-Road Kit

The interior reveal from April is still the reference point. Chery showed off front, centre and rear locking differentials with their own physical controls on the centre console, plus low-range, crawl control, a wading mode and a properly mapped off-road drive selector. The seating is finished in leather across the cabin in the showcased trim and the centre stack runs a large landscape touchscreen with a separate digital cluster. Roof-mounted speakers and a wireless charging pad with a flip cover suggest Chery is targeting a Wildtrak or X-Pro buyer rather than a base-spec tradie.

How that translates to grades is the part we still need confirmed. The KP31 brief always implied at least two trims in Australia, a workhorse plus a flagship 4WD spec, but Chery has not put names against them publicly. With the Stockman badge now locked, expect the variant ladder, V2L, charging speeds and any included long-range fuel tank to be the next batch of confirmed details.

Safety

The Stockman is not yet rated by ANCAP. The KP31 concept brief listed the usual AEB, lane-keep, adaptive cruise, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic suite that the segment now expects, and Chery's recent volume models in Australia (Tiggo 7 Hybrid, Tiggo 8) have landed with 5-star scores on current protocols. We will hold off on assuming anything until ANCAP publishes a result against the 2026 protocol, which is the toughest yet for dual-cab pickups.

How It Compares

The Stockman lands into a segment that has shifted faster in 12 months than the previous 12 years. Pulling the live numbers out of the CarSorted DB:

Two things stand out. Chery is the only one bringing diesel into a PHEV ute, and the claimed electric range is well clear of the Ranger Hybrid's 49km, in the same conversation as the Shark 6 Performance and the Hunter Pro. The Cannon Alpha PHEV has an NEDC headline figure, which usually flatters by 25 to 35 per cent against WLTP, so do not directly compare 115km NEDC to 100km WLTP. We will rerun this table the second Chery publishes a WLTP number.

Need to cross-shop the names you know? Run the BYD Shark 6 vs JAC Hunter PHEV comparison or pit a Shark 6 Premium against a Ford Ranger, and we will add the Stockman to the multi-card layout as soon as Chery publishes RRPs.

CarSorted Take

Here is where it gets interesting for Aussie buyers. Plotting the current dual-cab PHEV list out of our DB, the BYD Shark 6 Premium sits at $57,900 driveaway with a 2,500kg braked tow ceiling, the Shark 6 Performance jumps to $69,990 driveaway for the full 3,500kg rating, and the JAC Hunter Pro PHEV opens from under $50,000 plus on-roads. The Stockman has to slot somewhere between the Hunter and the Shark 6 Performance to make sense, because that is where the buyer money is actually flowing right now. A circa-$55,000 to $60,000 driveaway opener with the diesel PHEV story would shake the segment harder than any new petrol PHEV could. Push past $65,000 driveaway and Chery is fighting the established dual-cab kings on their own turf, not just selling a powertrain novelty.

Use our Shark 6 vs Hunter PHEV page to see exactly what a sub-$60,000 driveaway PHEV ute looks like spec for spec today, then keep the Stockman tab open. If you would rather browse the whole electrified ute pipeline in one screen, the CarSorted directory ute filter already lists every confirmed model with running specs and our internal pricing notes.

What This Means For Buyers

If you ordered a HiLux or a Ranger last year, none of this changes your current truck. If you are a buyer sitting on a Q4 2026 deposit deadline for a dual-cab, the Stockman name confirmation is your cue to delay your final decision by a week or two. Chery typically publishes RRP and full grade walks about six to eight weeks before first deliveries, so a public price reveal is plausible between August and early October.

For tradies who actually need to tow 3.5 tonnes weekly, the appeal of a diesel PHEV is straightforward. You get genuine torque off idle, the diesel range you trust on a 1,000km gooseneck run, and the home-charging cost saving on Monday-to-Friday city commuting that has been the single biggest reason novated-lease customers have flipped to a Shark 6 in 2026. Combine that with the 1,000kg payload and the proper locking-diff hardware, and the Stockman is the first PHEV ute that reads like a real LandCruiser or Ranger alternative, not a workplace-shy lifestyle vehicle pretending to tow.

For fleet buyers, the smart move is to ask Chery now whether the Stockman gets a cab-chassis variant. The Shark 6 added one in May. If the Stockman launches dual-cab pickup only, it locks itself out of the mining and council channels that have done so much to validate the Shark 6 in just six months. If it launches with a cab-chassis option ready to take a service body, this becomes a genuine fleet contender on day one.

Best Electrified Utes Australia 2026 | Best Utes Australia 2026 | BYD Shark 6 vs Ford Ranger