GWM’s local boss, John Kett, is confident the addition of a 3.0-litre diesel engine to its Australian line-up won’t hurt the company’s NVES (New Vehicle Efficiency Standard) targets.

Speaking to media, including Whichcar by Wheels, at the local launch of the new 3.0-litre diesel-powered Tank 500 SUV and Cannon-Alpha dual-cab, Kett said the new powertrain would have no impact in 2026 – “It’s neutral for us this year” – but that 2027 could see the Chinese brand face a small penalty.

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Australia’s NVES scheme uses a credit and debit system for  vehicle emissions where manufacturers can accumulate credits for selling low- or no-emission vehicles such as hybrids and electric cars against sales of higher-emitting vehicles such as diesel-powered SUVs and dual-cab utes.

GWM’s broad portfolio includes fully electric cars like the Ora 5 and a number of plug-in hybrid utes and SUVs as well as the just-launched 3.0-litre diesel variants of Tank 500 and Cannon Alpha.

Kett admitted the introduction of the new diesel powertrain could incur “a slight penalty next year”, but added he remained hopeful that a new plug-in hybrid variant of the Cannon ute would “neutralise” any NVES impacts.

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“It’ll start to be a slight penalty next year,” he said, “but when you put that hand-in-hand where we think the Cannon Hi4-T is going to come in, it just neutralises itself.

“We’re going to invest every credit we have in every car we can sell,” he added.

GWM Australia’s head of product planning, Sam Mulkearns, added that “it helps that our new Ora 5 SUV is performing quite strongly. So it gives us quite a lot of credits to help us offset any penalties that we might receive in the future for launching these new engines.”

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Since launching earlier this year, GWM says sales of the new Ora 5 are running close to 500 a month, easily eclipsing the older Ora hatchback’s peak of around 140 a month.