Car giant to finally deliver ‘nuclear’ Aus ute

It’s been a hell of a long time coming but one of Australia’s biggest selling car companies is finally bringing a ute Down Under and it is promising something big.

For a car company that’s done so much right over the past two decades, Hyundai’s failure to bring a ute to Aussie customers has been a bewildering oversight.

But is the Korean brand about to go nuclear, and deliver a dual-cab one-tonner like no other?

“It’s going to be mind-blowing,” said Hyundai Australia CEO Don Romano, while guaranteeing the new ute would be revealed during his tenure, and “my work permit goes for another two and a half years.”

So what is Hyundai cooking up ahead of this likely 2027 reveal?

“We need to differentiate ourselves (with the ute),” Romano said.

“There are technologies that we’re currently developing that are different than anything we’ve brought to the market.”

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The Hyundai Santa Cruz concept is expected to spawn a new ute for the Australian market.

UTE, WHAT UTE?

But what?

There’s not much appetite for full EV utes, and plug-ins are already here with the Ford Ranger, BYD Shark and Cannon Alpha.

“We’ll ensure that our ute and our vehicles in the future are different than what China is currently producing,” Romano continued.

Ah, them’s fighting words.

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“We’re going to try to be first to market in a number of areas. We have to really think differently. It’s going to be great. I really mean that, and I’m not just blowing smoke,” Romano promised.

Short of a Back to the Future-esque plutonium-powered nuclear reactor with flux capacitor in the tray, exactly what will power this mystery Hyundai ute?

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The new ute could share some characteristics with the Hyundai Palisade. Picture: Supplied

The brand has – alongside Toyota and BMW – championed hydrogen fuel cell technology for many years.

A hydrogen ute? Really?

Hyundai’s hydrogen-power Nexo FCEV has been on select Aussie fleets since 2021, and a second-generation is due in 2026. It boasts an EV-busting 700km range, yet takes just five minutes to refuel.

Problem is, at last count there were only 13 hydrogen refuelling locations in Australia.

But you need only look at Hyundai’s universally-adored hydrogen-powered 500kW N Vision 74 high performance concept car to see how serious the Koreans take fuel cell tech.

A ute fuelled solely with hydrogen tanks would be a brave leap into the unknown, so how about a hybrid version which also featured the trusted, familiar hand of internal combustion?

Don Romano, chief executive for Hyundai Motor Company Australia, says the company will deliver a ute Down Under soon. Picture: Supplied

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF HYBRID

Romano said there was work on “a different type of hybrid” to differentiate this Hyundai ute, so could this be a – wait for it – Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicle, or FCHEV?

It’s certainly a more appetising prospect than a range extender setup (as seen with Nissan’s e-Power SUVs), although this could be the less sexy option for Hyundai’s new ute.

It would use a petrol engine as a generator, feeding a battery to power electric motors. It’s hardly groundbreaking – Holden’s Volt offered similar a decade ago. Besides, an e-Power Nissan X-Trail returns 6.1L/100km next to a “normal” hybrid Toyota RAV4’s 4.7L/100km, so there’s no real economy wins.

It won’t simply be another Kia Tasman.

What’s guaranteed is Hyundai won’t offer a re-bodied version of sister brand Kia’s new diesel-powered Tasman ute.

That would just be re-heating the soup, and wouldn’t comply with Romano’s promise of something groundbreaking.

Plus, it’d attract pollution fines under the government’s increasingly strict New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES).

Whatever the new Hyundai ute is, Romano said: “Our main goal is to develop our own Hyundai ute with our own technology that’s unique,” which all but confirms a once-proposed platform-share with General Motors was off the table.

Hyundai N Vision 74 concept car.

It all sounds like a calculated risk, but a necessary one for Hyundai. Just lobbing a turbo-diesel dual cab into the mix won’t cut it in 2027.

If they get this new “revolutionary” hybrid ute with its mystery powertrain right, the market potential is vast.

On average each month, Australians buy over 5000 Ford Rangers, 4000 Toyota HiLuxes and 1000 BYD Shark plug-in hybrid utes.

Hyundai needs a slice of that pie, and the sooner the better.