What’s different about Tank500 Hi4T PHEV? Plug-in hybrid 4×4 of the future
Today we are talking about the Tank 500 Hi-4. The media have taken this car to Lang Lang recently for the GWM 2025 tech day. And I too have a Tank 500 Hi-4 here. Let’s go through it very quickly. Let me tell you a few things about the car before or after you’ve purchased the vehicle. We’ll be going through a little bit of the interior, the exterior. Stick around if that’s what you want to find out. So on the outside, this is an accessorized vehicle, but the standard 10500 hybrid and the PHEV high basically looks exactly the same. Something that’s different are obviously the wheels, the alloy wheels are different. And on the back you will find the badging has had a little bit of a change. The Tank 500 is here. There used to be GWM tank there. This that got deleted. Even here, the GWM tank badge here has changed. And over here, obviously, the PXGV and the Hi4T, but otherwise on the outside, this vehicle looks exactly the same as the HTV and the 3 L diesel that uh some of the execs spoke about in the Tank 500 and the Canon Alpha that will be coming soon. On the outside, let’s go through it very quickly. Given this is an accessorized vehicle and there are minimal changes, let’s focus on the accessories today. So, this is a standard. So, this is a genuine GWM bonnet protector. And hopefully you guys can see headlight protector on both sides. This is a notch bar and the light bar as well. Standard 360 front camera there. With the light bar and the notch bar, you do see a little bit of it. We will check it out on the inside, but doesn’t impact it too much. We have the snorkel on the side. Once again, genuine GWM snorkel and also this roof panel with this upgraded um rail. I suppose it is now upgraded to 100 kg dynamic weight and 300 kg of static weight. So this with this you can handle the rooftop tent etc. And this here is a 2 m um car park as well. Despite having a slightly taller roof platform, it still fits under your 2 m car parks. And the reason why it’s a bit taller than usual is just because the just allowing enough space for the panameric sunroof to open. Rear privacy glass on the outside. You’ve got the chrome trim on top of the door handle there. And obviously retractable side steps. These side steps, you can kind of see the car has been off-roading, so it’s a bit dirty. And there is a mode inside where you can select to have them open for for when you’re washing it. So that way you can clear out all the dirt and mud etc. And likewise when you’re off-roading you can also select a mode where they they stay retracted. So let’s say you’re beach on something you come you get out of the vehicle the the side steps wouldn’t try to open and obviously damage itself. On the right hand side is the charging port. So supporting DC and AC charging. This got a bit messy. Got a bit of uh mud came in here. Okay. And something that a lot of people don’t really realize is obviously this is a pretty big door and tailgate, something that’s a little bit unique, soft closed tailgate. So just then you just have to click it on and the car or the tailgate is would pull itself in. So that’s about all I can talk about on the outside. There’s the genuine uh toe bar as well with the this one has had the 12 pin installed. And not sure if you guys heard just then as I opened up the flap, it turns turned the vehicle into tow. That’s why the engine kicked on. So, powering this is a 2 L turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine mated to an electric motor behind the engine between the gearbox. Combined output 300 kW and 750 Newton meter of torque. So, in the good old days when they say no replacement for displacement, PVs are definitely making its case. Now, let’s go in and have a look at the inside. In the ultra grade, you have Napa leather seats. And as we step in with the retractable side steps, we are greeted with leather steering wheel, 14.6 inch touchscreen. pretty much everything is similar, very similar to the normal Tank 500. So, instead of going through everything today, why don’t I show you the differences and let’s start with how I would set up the vehicle. So the first thing is based on what you prefer to listen whether it’s uh radio or you like to listen to your Spotify or your own you know YouTube music or whatever it is you can actually hold and drag this across. So I normally listen to DAB so I would prefer to have this in front rather than this because it’s one or the other. Then the next thing I would do to set up the vehicle is go into the navigation. And this is very key, this little button here. Switch that off. That is to mute all of the left lane merger ahead. Uh you are you you’re currently over the speed limit and a few of those really annoying prompts. So that would shut that up. The next thing, if you have a partner or or someone who who you share the vehicle with, this is where you would set the driver seat memory, including the steering wheel position and the mirrors. So, make sure you set it. Once you’ve put everything into your your preferred position, all you need to do is just hold and there I’ve saved my my position. Welcome seat. I definitely prefer to have on heads-up display. I really enjoy and and like the head-up display. Having it on normal rather than off-road, but to give you an idea, that’s what off-road looks like. I would also have both navigation and smart drive on. I generally don’t use snow mode. Um, snow mode pretty much turns the font there in the head-up display to blue. So, for an example, you can see if it’s against a white background, it’s quite hard to see white text. So, that’s why it’s called a snow mode because obviously snow is white and you can’t really see it, see the head-up display information if you’re on snow. This is also something that I would switch off under the DMS or driver monitor system. distraction monitor. So that is the the one where it tells you to, you know, please focus on driving. This one actually has memory. So it once you switch it off, this is going to remain off. Every time you restart the vehicle, it will remain off. However, fatigue and vital, you are going to have to switch it off every single time you come in. And this is basically because of an endcap uh requirement. Then next thing I would do is also going into system and sound. Start up animation music. This is the first thing I will shut off. Okay. So this is the one where you know when you start the vehicle it mix the theme tune I suppose which I’m not a fan of. Exterior sound effect is also one that I switch off. So this is the one where when you lock and unlock the vehicle it makes this noise or sound or plays this music which I’m definitely not a fan of. This one alarm voice broadcast 100% switch this one off. This is the one where when you activate cruise control it’s going to go active cruise control activated active cruise control deactivated etc etc. So this definitely switch it off. Audio audible car warning best to have it as low rather than medium or high. And overall, I think that’s the key things to to set up the vehicle with um that are a little bit annoying. And if you’re not a fan of the ELK, you can also do press custom and then, you know, remove a few things and then you can pull pull the ELK in here at the shortcut menu. Not only that, if you have kids and they like to play around with the rear function screen, here is how you can lock it as well to stop the kids, you know, adjusting the audio, opening and closing the sunroof, etc. So, yeah. And while we were outside, I also spoke about the electric side steps. So this is the one where you can have it auto remain extended or remain retract. So you would use this as a dayto-day. You would use this when you’re washing the vehicle. You want the side steps extended so you can clean out all the dirt and mud or remain retracted for while you’re off-roading. So just make sure you remember that. Otherwise, there is a serious risk of you potentially damaging your side steps while off-roading. you know, having a vehicle beached. You open the door, it tries to extend and it can’t. Hopefully, you know what I mean. All right, so let’s talk about some of the differences in the PFGV. This screen is obviously what the key difference. You can first of all preset percentage of charge for your battery. Given this is an NMC battery, some people might prefer to have it charging only to 90% rather than to 100% all the time. Here is also where you can do scheduled start charging. Obviously, setting the time. I’m not going to need that gun. Insert insulation of battery. This one is not really useful. This one is probably not not going to be used in Australia most of the time. I mean, if you live up far north in Darwin or something, you might you might need it, but otherwise, you know, everywhere else, you really don’t need to use that at all. Once again, this is the same thing only for, you know, when you’re at really cold temperature like minus 20, minus 30, would you use that function? V2L or discharge. So, this is where you come to discharge the vehicle. So, uh, once you’ve plugged in your discharge board, all you need to do is just press this button. Obviously, it’s going to bounce back right now because it’s not plugged in. You’ll see what I mean when you when you have the board plugged in. This following one is start the engine to generate power when power is too low. So, for an example, right now, if I were to try and discharge, I’m at basically minimum charge. I’m going to have to press a button to in order to to discharge. So, the engine will simply run as a generator and continue to pump bad electricity for you to discharge. Um, I’ve been told with the I don’t I don’t know for sure, but I remember seeing somewhere um someone mentioned you are able to discharge 7 hours straight with a full tank of fuel at full load or something. But yeah, don’t quote me on that. Long story short, you can you can produce a lot of electricity. More than enough for when you’re going away for a weekend holiday, um doing camping or whatever. Energy consumption information. Nothing too much to to look at for for this car because it’s still fairly new. And the battery range here, this that’s what this is for. So, do you prefer to have it showing as a range or kilometer or the percentage of battery charge, which is 13% at the moment? So, this is where it’s all done. Now, just then I went in from the from the from the home screen there. Alternatively, you can also click in through here. So, they they both end up at the same place. Other than that, there is still the off-road mode. In the off-road expert mode, it’s very similar to the normal tank 500. So, oh, I accidentally put on the rear diff lock. The Conqueror perspective is this sort of front view. Um, I’m not a huge fan of Conqueror perspective, but maybe you prefer it. I prefer to simply press this button and have the normal 360 view. Um, but yeah, each to their own. Now, let’s look at the physical buttons here. Once again, I’m only going to focus on the differences versus the normal 10500. Overall, the buttons are the same except this one here. So, this is the one where you can cycle through EV, HEV, and intelligent mode. So, let’s go through that. So EV by definition you’re you’re driving in pure electric mode. Now there are limitations to it. For an example right now given I have no charge it’s not going to go in EV mode guys. So it’s going to remain in hybrid or HEV mode. Now intelligent mode is interesting. You can select outdoor camping mode which means as you drive instead of draining the battery to 13% or the minimum charge. Outdoor camping mode means it will try to hold it at 50% charge. Which means, for an example, if you’re towing a caravan or or you know, you’re going to do, you know, quite a bit of um hill climbs or or whatever, you can always have it set on outdoor camping mode. That way, you can have plenty of charge or electric charge specifically for your 100% 300 kW 750 Newton meter of torque at all time. Alternatively, you can also do customize So for customized, unlike outdoor camping, you actually have a slider here. You can preset the battery charge between 30 all the way to 80%. So for an example, if I know I’m going away for camping over the weekend, I’m going to preset obviously charge the vehicle first and then preset it to intelligent intelligent mode at 80%. So when when I arrive, I know I will have 80% of the battery remaining for me to, you know, run my induction cooker, run my coffee machine, whatever, whatever it is. Drive mode memory. I forgot to talk about this actually. This one you definitely need to to select. So this is the one where it would save a lot of the switches that you’ve preset between cycles. This also includes the mode that you’re driving in. So for an example, right now we’re in normal mode as you can see this would also um save that. So obviously normal mode doesn’t really matter. But if you if you prefer to drive in eco mode or sport mode, this is where it will remember it. Other than this, there is one more thing that is different which is over here. This here is the fuel release. So if I press it, you can see it pops up with ready to fill up. So basically the tank is pressurized in the PHEV. That’s why there is a electronic button here. Release that pressure in the tank before you you are able to open the the fuel fuel filler cap manually. Before we go to the second row, there’s one more thing that I just want to show you guys. If you look at that mirror, that middle headrest does get in the way quite a lot while driving. So, what I would recommend is if you don’t normally carry full passengers to just fold this down. As I said, this is definitely one of the features. Now, it’s getting a bit dark, so let me just So, obviously, this is brand new in the Tank 500, but even down here, it’s a little bit different as well. In the Tank 500 PXGV, the second row does have both heated and ventilated seats. You can see your AC controls here as well for you to tune it the way you for you to adjust it the way you want. Up top, this here is a cup holder as well, which you can tuck away. Down here, there’s a little bit of extra storage. It’s not too big, just about the size of a hand. This here is there’s also a rubber pad here for your phone. Now, let’s have a play at the screen. Swipe to unlock. Close. All right. So, hopefully you guys can see. I’ve noticed a bit of a So, bit of a glare. Perfect. So, as you can see, you can slide and control the sunroof blind just from the back here. You can slide this to wherever you want, and then it will stop automatically. All right, let’s start from the front. So, you have the control of the AC here, and this here is for just the rear. So, this car does have three zone climate control. The front, left, front, right, and then the back as well. Then you have heated and ventilated seats. But not only that, you have massaging seats for both the left and the right outer seat. Okay. Unfortunately, nothing no massaging for the middle, but it is still a very very comfortable seat. Then music as um you can do your DAB, your FM, AM, etc. when available. You can also do Bluetooth and control it that way as well. Finally, here we just showed you a little bit of the sunroof and um sorry, sunroof blind and sunroof control. You can also play around with your ambient lighting, your screen lock time, and finally your sound. You don’t have the full access, but you do have the ability to tune where the sound goes. Before we move on, there’s just one more thing I want to show you guys. Open the blind up a little bit more. The headrest is uh quite a lot bigger compared to the existing one. And not only that, on the side here, you do have an an extra recline. Okay, there are multiple um adjustments about three levels of adjustment of recline for when you’re on a longer trip, then perhaps that’s when you you would use it. All right, let’s head to the boot. Sorry about some of the crap in the car, but here is the genuine accessory rubber boot mat. And the capacity of the boot is still pretty big. However, it’s probably not as big as what some people might expect because of the big battery being inside the vehicle. It does take up the space on the inside. But I guess the benefit of that is when you look underneath the battery or the traction battery is 100% in the vehicle. Some people prefer it on the inside as a lot of people have commented about the Canon Alpha saying, “Oh, that they everyone’s going to damage the battery by going off-road because it’s there.” Um but if you bring it inside then that means there are other things that you lose as well. You gain some, you lose some. So mechanical 4×4 which is high 4T and that is one of the key differences between this and some of its competitor. So yeah, that about sums it up for the 10500 high. If you enjoyed the video, make sure you give me a thumbs up and if you have any questions, just leave it in the comments below. Thank you very much and I’ll catch you on the next one. So, customize
GWM Tank 500 Hi4T as seen in the recent 2025 GWM tech day held at Lang Lang proving ground. Going through details that you may have missed from the media, I go through the vehicle in detail pointing out the differences to the normal HEV. On the outside the differences are minimal vs the normal hybrid Tank 500. A different design on the 18 inch alloy wheels, rear tail gate badging that are different. Genuine GWM accessories were also installed including bonnet protector, head light protector, nudge bar, light bar, snorkel, roof tray platform all available from your local GWM dealer.
Powered by a 2.0L turbo charged engine, mated to a motor and a 9 speed gearbox, this car produces 300kW of power and 750Nm of torque. So is it still no replacement for displacement? 37.1kWh battery pack, 120km of EV range.
Setting up the vehicle is also easy, setting up the desk top, getting rid of “left lane merger ahead” or “you are currently over the speed limit”, preset your memory seat including the steering wheel and mirror positions. Setting up your head up display and what “snow mode” means.
If you find the Driver monitor system annoying, you can improve that significantly by switching off “Distraction monitoring”, however Fatigue and Vital signs will cycle back on every time due to ANCAP requirement.
The Tank 500 makes a noise when I start and I am not a fan of it. Exterior noise as well. Alarm voice broadcast, switch that off to stop the “Active Cruise Control activated/deactivated”. ELK emergency lane keep can also have the shortcut added into the swipe down menu.
Electric side steps can also be switched off while off-roading.
Ability to preset max charge on the traction battery, scheduled charging, V2L vehicle to load. Available discharge board as a genuine accessory.
Off-road expert mode and conqueror perspective is still available as per the HEV. I prefer the 360 view monitor though.
EV/HEV button helps you cycle through EV, HEV, and Intelligent mode. Outdoor camping mode will try to hold charge at 50% perfect for towing and hill climb. Alternatively you can also do customise presetting the charge from 30-80%.
PHEV also has a fuel filler cap release which will release pressure in the fuel tank before allowing you to refuel safely.
Rear head rest also gets in the way of the mirror so I recommend folding it down. Next level of luxury now with heated, ventilated, and massaging seats. Control things such as the sunroof, 3-zone climate control, audio, etc.
The traction battery sits inside the vehicle
Leave me a comment if you have any specific questions!
00:00 Intro
00:28 Exterior differences
01:28 Genuine Accessories
04:58 Powertrain
05:29 Interior + set up
11:32 PHEV settings
18:29 Back seats
22:07 Boot + outtro
