Key Takeaways
- Australia is named as the first market in the world to get the electric U9, which is the genuine first here
- It is not Australia's first electric ute. The LDV eT60 got here in 2023 and is still on sale at $99,990
- 3,500kg braked towing, listed by MG Australia, would make it the only electric ute sold here rated to pull what a diesel pulls
- 102.2kWh LFP battery, 430km WLTP and 125kW front plus 200kW rear motors on MG Australia's own pages; the 685kg payload is still reported only
- $78,990 before on-road costs, one grade, with first arrivals reported for the fourth quarter of 2026
- No ANCAP rating for the electric version
Image credit: MG Motor Australia. Overseas model shown, local specification may vary.
Update, 1 October 2026: MG has priced the U9 EV at $78,990 before on-road costs, in a single dual-motor all-wheel-drive grade, and lists that price in its own Australian build-and-price configurator. MG Australia's model page now carries the headline figures too: 430km WLTP range, 0-100km/h in 5.8 seconds and 3,500kg braked towing. Reports from the announcement put first arrivals in the fourth quarter of 2026; MG's own page still has no date.
MG has confirmed the electric version of its U9 dual-cab, and it has done something genuinely unusual with it: Australia gets it before anybody else on earth. That is the part worth paying attention to, and it is the part that keeps getting garbled in the retelling.
Because the phrase doing the rounds is "Australia's first electric ute", and that is not what happened. Australia is the first market for this particular ute. Our own database has been carrying an electric ute since well before this announcement, and it is worth a minute of your time before we get to the good numbers.
We Have Had an Electric Ute for Three Years. Almost Nobody Bought One
The LDV eT60 landed here in 2023 and it is still listed, still on sale, and still sitting in our database at $99,990 before on-road costs. A KGM Musso EV followed in 2025. So the U9 EV would be roughly our third or fourth electric ute, not our first.
The reason nobody talks about the eT60 is the reason the U9 EV matters. Here is the comparison, and it is brutal.
| Electric ute | Battery | Range | Braked towing | Payload | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LDV eT60 Dual Cab | 88.6kWh | 330km | 1,000kg | 1,000kg | $99,990 |
| MG U9 EV | 102.2kWh | 430km WLTP | 3,500kg | 685kg (reported) | $78,990 |
eT60 figures are current Australian specs from the CarSorted database, price before on-road costs. U9 EV battery, range, towing and price ($78,990 before on-road costs) are from MG Australia's own pages; the payload is as reported and has not been published by MG Australia.
One thousand kilograms of braked towing is the number that killed the eT60 as a serious tool. It is a third of what a diesel U9, a HiLux or a Ranger will pull. With MG Australia now listing 3,500kg braked towing, the U9 EV becomes the first electric ute in this country that a caravan owner or a boat owner can look at without immediately walking away. That, and not the word "first", is the actual story.
If you want to sanity-check what any of this means for your own rig, our TowingSorted planner and the towing and payload calculator will do the GVM and ball-weight arithmetic properly.
Image credit: MG Motor Australia. Overseas model shown, local specification may vary.
The Payload Is Where the Bill Comes Due
A 102.2kWh battery weighs what it weighs, and a ute only has so much gross vehicle mass to spend. The reported 685kg payload is the compromise, and you can see the size of it against the diesel U9s we already hold.
| MG U9 variant | Powertrain | Payload | Braked towing | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U9 Explore | 2.5 diesel, 160kW/520Nm | 870kg | 3,500kg | $52,990 drive-away |
| U9 Explore X | 2.5 diesel, 160kW/520Nm | 835kg | 3,500kg | $55,990 drive-away |
| U9 Explore Pro | 2.5 diesel, 160kW/520Nm | 770kg | 3,500kg | $60,990 drive-away |
| U9 EV | Dual motor, 325kW/700Nm | 685kg (reported) | 3,500kg | $78,990 before on-roads |
Current price on CarSorted: MG U9 Explore $52,990 RRP, as at 22 Jul 2026; MG U9 Explore X $55,990 RRP, as at 22 Jul 2026; MG U9 Explore Pro $60,990 RRP, as at 22 Jul 2026.
Diesel U9 figures from the CarSorted database, sourced from MG Australia; diesel prices are drive-away, the EV price is before on-road costs, so the price column mixes two bases. U9 EV power (125kW front plus 200kW rear), towing and price are from MG Australia's configurator and model page; the 685kg payload is as reported, not published by MG Australia.
So the electric one gives up somewhere between 85kg and 185kg of payload depending on which diesel you compare it against, and it lands under the one-tonne mark that a lot of fleet buyers and a lot of tradies treat as pass or fail. For what it is worth, 685kg is exactly what our row for the GWM Cannon Alpha Ultra PHEV carries too, so this is a battery-weight problem rather than an MG problem.
The other half of that equation is what happens to 430km when you hitch 3,500kg to the back. WLTP numbers are measured with an empty tray and nothing on the tow ball. Nobody has published a towing range figure, we are not going to invent one, and it is the single most important number this ute has yet to produce.
What MG Australia Has Actually Published
Here is the bit we think is worth being straight about. MG's Australian U9 EV page still wears a "Coming Soon" badge and a line reading "Overseas model shown. Local specification may vary." It now lists 430km of WLTP range, 0-100km/h in 5.8 seconds, up to 3.5 tonnes of braked towing, a 102kWh LFP battery and 20 to 80 per cent DC charging in 42 minutes. MG's build-and-price configurator adds the $78,990 price, a 102.2kWh battery figure and motor outputs of 125kW front and 200kW rear. It does not give a date.
The one figure in the tables above still marked "reported" is the 685kg payload, which comes from the announcement briefing and the federal approval paperwork rather than from MG Australia. We have labelled it that way rather than dressing it up.
Image credit: MG Motor Australia. Overseas model shown, local specification may vary.
On Safety, One Thing to Be Careful About
You will see a five-star ANCAP rating attached to this car. Be careful with it. ANCAP's published U9 record is five stars from 2024 testing, and the record itself says, in its own words, that it applies to U9 diesel variants. There is no ANCAP rating published for the electric U9.
A different powertrain means different weight, different weight distribution and a different structure around the battery, and ANCAP does not hand a rating across on the basis of a shared badge. Our policy is that a rating that has not been published does not exist, so the U9 EV shows no data on safety until ANCAP says otherwise.
Our Take: the Towing Number Is the Whole Ballgame
MG spent the diesel U9's launch telling anyone who asked that a fully electric ute was not a priority, on the grounds that payload, towing and range all suffer. Eighteen months later here it is, and Australia is first in the queue. That reversal tells you something about how fast this segment is moving, and it tells you MG thinks the towing problem is now solved well enough to sell.
The honest position: if 3,500kg holds up in production trim, this is the first electric ute in Australia that competes with a diesel on the spec that matters most to ute buyers, and that is a real milestone regardless of who got here first. At $78,990 before on-road costs it is priced above the BYD Shark 6 and the Cannon Alpha PHEV, both plug-in hybrids that tow (the Cannon Alpha the same 3,500kg, the Shark 6 Premium 2,500kg), and neither of which asks you to find a charger before you can drive home from the coast.
MG has now put its own name to the price and the headline numbers, and we will add the U9 EV to the database from MG Australia's published figures. Until it lands, our electric ute guide and the wider MG range are where to look.