Tank cool name and you can tell your mates and anyone else who wants to listen.
That you drive a tank if you stump up, for one of these the gwm tank 300
that’s just launched in Australia, 10terra honest reviews of your next
car brought to you by the tank 300 is a 4×4 wagon.
That competes with the likes of Toyota Fortuna and Isuzu mux, and like its
Rivals it offers body on frame architecture as well as hardcore.
1: Dedicated 4×4 but unlike its key Rivals the tank is petrol hybrid.
So let’s check it, out including a hardcore off-road course rather than opt for diesel power
as usually favored by the 4×4 wagon competition, the GWM Tank 300 offers a
choice of petrol or petrol electric hybrid powertrains, it’s the ladder that
really brings an interesting twist to the dedicated all-terrain format
and it’s the hybrid version, that sits as
the harder core tank 300 offering, that we
drove at the recent Australian launch internal combustion is a 2 liter a
turbocharged petrol 4 and at 180 kilowatts and 380 newton meters, it’s
quite a potent one at that it’s paired with an electric motor, that outputs 78
kilowatts and 268 newton meters total system figures are 258 kilowatts and 615
newton meters in comparison, that’s well up on fortunate diesels 150 kilowatts
and 500 newton meters other crucial stats well, it’s thirsty gwm says the
tank 300 is certified for 10.3 liters per hundred, which is pretty poor for a
petrol electric hybrid but the company is working towards reclassification
that’s closer to 8 liters it’ll also tow 2.5 tonnes brake which is a little down
on the four tuners 3200 kilogram figure, but the elephant in the room is how
petrol electric motivation goes in a challenging off-road environment, so it’s
perhaps not surprising that, the tank 300s local launch program was conducted
entirely across tough and challenging 4×4 four courses held at the famed
Australian Automotive Research Center in Victoria the tank 300 sits on gwn’s
all-terrain dedicated p-71 chassis that is also shared with a larger tank 500.
2: Drivers sent through a 9-speed automatic transmission exclusively for the hybrid.
or an 8-speed Auto for the petrol its 4×4 system, is what gwm calls torque
on demand and it offers proper high and low dual range, that’s selectable once
the vehicle is stationary, the tank 300 also offers a variety of Drive modes
including Sport and a mud mode that holds the engine RPM higher
and the drive modes can be switched on the fly, when you’re on the move
right let’s see how the tank goes off-road so the first thing that you
notice with the tankiness petrol electric hybrid system, is how quiet it
is so you just don’t get that diesel rattle
and when you do change Drive modes, it makes some strange sounds
right let’s put it in a follow that’s weird
the tank stamping is actually quite softly set,
more so than you might find in say a Fortuner or a Isuzu mu-x
so going through here although it’s extremely rough the ride is actually
quite cushiony not the essence you just touch the
throttle and you can really feel that electric torque, there really is a
surprising amount of grit from what’s essentially road going rubber the tank
300 has a fantastic 300 degree camera system, and it provides a forward view of
hard to see terrain such as drop-offs and even an undercarriage view so next
up the offset warps which really test your articulation and I’m not going to
put the rear diff lock on but, just leave it in four low and gonna see where how.
Right, we’re uh lifting the right rear wheel and does that easy
so next up I’m a little nervous because, we’re not in the diesel we’re in a
petrol with high voltage electric power and we’re about to go through 600 mil of
wading through water so fingers crossed,
we’d have to go for a swim and our sensors are up but,
the water’s halfway at the doors that was relatively easy,
all right back to four high and uh we’ll see what crazy sounds it does this time
range all right so we’ve got some fairly aggressive humps right now and four
3: Heights see if it bottoms out against the underbody protection pretty good.
got one more again it’s surprising, how quiet this
tank is with its petrol electric motivation
no Hill’s descent control, we’ll just ride it a little bit on the brakes easy
another mildly challenging ascent and we’re going to try it this time again in
four High traction from these road going hand Cooks,
so the approach and departure angles for the tank are around 32 33 degrees,
which is actually pretty good and ground clearance although, we’ve just
scraped there it’s 226 millimeters right we’ve got a steep Ascent now but,
I’m going to keep it in four high which, I’m a little bit nervous about what I’m
hoping is that the electric torque will actually just drag the tank up the hill
let’s check it out I’m actually only using a really light throttle here
and it’s actually getting quite steep wisely Bridge the ruts and it does it easily
pretty impressive one plus with the electric motor is that it brings a lot
of effortless torque at low speed, which is very handy for negotiating off-road
challenges uphill the electric torque really does make for effortless progress
up Steep inclines and it’s here that the petrol engine certainly doesn’t seem to
be doing much of the heavy lifting, I am pretty skeptical about anything as
petrol electric off-road particularly that water weighting. but, I must say the
tank has demonstrated some pretty good 4×4 chops, and I’m pretty impressed the
tank 300 hybrid comes with a locking rear differential on all grades but it
also adds a front locking diff on high spec versions
so swimming between four high and four low you do have to stop and knock it into neutral
but you can change between the different Drive modes such as mud
and sand and Sport on the Fly looks wise, it’s perhaps more Tonka truck
cute than it is Tonka truck tough and, it owes more of its styling to Jeep
Wrangler than it does say Fortuna or mux the tank 300 is offered in two trim levels.
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