Fancy another Chinese takeaway? Will the Deepal S07 be good enough to put a dent in Tesla Model Y’s Aussie sales
Chinese EV-maker Deepal has announced it will begin selling its all-new 2025 Deepal S07 in Australia later this year following a wide-reaching deal with distribution giant Inchcape.
Sales of the mid-size Tesla Model Y rival would kick off before the end of the year.
For those not familiar with the Deepal nameplate, it’s actually a sub-brand of Changan – China’s fifth largest car-maker.
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Currently Deepal sells just four vehicles in its home market including the S07 SUV, a mid-size sedan (L07), compact SUV (S05) and another more rugged battery-electric mid-size SUV called the G318.
It’s the latter all-electric 4×4 that will follow the S07 as right-hand drive production has already been approved for the UK market.
Back in Australia, Deepal’s choice of partner could prove smart as Inchcape currently distributes Subaru, Peugeot and fellow Chinese brand Foton, which means sales avenues that could allow it to get an early foothold in the market.
Other new Chinese brands such as XPeng and Zeekr are having to build dealer networks from scratch.
The benefit to Inchcape is Deepal will fill the space left by Citroen after it exited earlier this year after 102-continuous-years of sales in Australia.
When the Deepal S07 lands in Q4 of 2024 (October- December), it will come driven by a single 160kW electric motor, although a more powerful 190kW motor is already on sale in China that could come later.
Combined with either a 66.8kWh or 79.87kWh battery, the S07 will get a range of 520km or 628km, although those figures were recorded on the more lenient CLTC test cycle.
Later on, as well as the 190kW e-motor, a range-extender hybrid could also arrive that uses a small 1.5-litre combustion engine as a generator to top up the batteries.
Measuring in at 4750mm long, 1930mm wide and standing 1625mm tall with a 2900mm wheelbases, the S07 shares a similar footprint to the Model Y but is fractionally narrower than its US rival.
Weighing in at 2073kg, Deepal says its S07 can tow up to 1500kg braked and tug 750kg unbraked.
Expect all models to ride on large 20-inch wheels and for the S07 to come with high levels of standard equipment including a large 15.6-inch touchscreen that gets wireless Apple CarPlay, augmented reality sat-nav, gesture control and over-the-air updates.
Wireless charging, ambient lighting and a 14-speaker sound system will also be available that includes speakers within the headrests.
All S07s will come with adaptive cruise control, an advanced autonomous emergency braking, lane-keep assist, lane departure warning, blind-spot monitoring, rear-cross traffic alert, driver fatigue monitoring and auto high-beam.
Pricing and full details of the Deepal S07 will surface in the coming weeks ahead of its market arrival with the new Chinese entrant strongly tipped to undercut the Tesla Model Y.
The Deepal is just one of 12 or more Chinese brand’s that have all announced they will sell cars in our market over the next 12 months. As well as XPeng and Zeekr, Smart has already launched, Leapmotor arrives before the end of the year and Geely, Denza and many more in 2025.
