2025 BYD Shark 6 vs GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV comparison

There's now another plug-in hybrid ute available in Australia, along with a third option on the horizon. The BYD Shark 6 no longer has a monopoly of its own in the ute segment with PHEV power, as now it's been joined by the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV.

These two are soon going to be joined by the Ford Ranger PHEV in the Australian market, but we've put these two utes back-to-back with towing, off-road, and on-road testing to see which is the best.

Available in only one trim level in Australia, the BYD Shark 6 is priced from $57,900 plus on-road costs. Even though the price is relatively low, there is an impressive level of standard kit on offer here.

Inside, you get heated and ventilated front seats, with faux leather trimming and electric adjustment. The infotainment system is 15.6-inch in size, and has that trademark spinning trick that BYD is known for.

There's also LED lighting front and rear, a 12-speaker sound system and a 360-degree camera system. There are parking sensors front and rear, side steps, a head-up display and a household plug on the inside.

It doesn't matter which way you cut it, and even if you discount the whole hybrid powertrain thing, the BYD Shark 6 cannot be seen as anything but an excellent value offering.

Add in the fact that the Shark 6 is a relatively large vehicle – capable of carrying a family – and that idea only increases.

Pricing for the GWM Cannon Alpha is a little higher than the BYD Shark 6, but this is muddied somewhat by some current drive-away deals available for ABN holders in Australia. So, your mileage may vary in this regard, according to where you're buying.

There are two trim levels to choose from when it comes to the Cannon Alpha. Entry-level Lux, which starts just below that $60,000 threshold, isn't exactly a poverty-pack special. There's a big 14.6-inch infotainment display, 12.3-inch instrument cluster, dual-zone climate control and electric front seat adjustment. This spec also gets rain-sensing wipers, automatic LED lighting front and rear, and a 360-degree camera system.

Stepping up to Ultra – like we have on test – gets a swag of extra goodies: heated and ventilated front seats, and rear outboard seats, massaging front seats with memory, a head-up display, interior ambient lighting, 10-speaker sound system, front and rear wireless charging pads and a panoramic sunroof.

There's also a trick electric sliding and tilting second row, which affords an impressive level of luxury in the usually unforgiving back pews of a ute.

Even though the BYD Shark 6 kicked off with some impressive sales figures – enough to put it in the top three of the segment – things have slowed down a bit since some of the attractive tax benefits have disappeared. It's worth having a squizz on Drive Marketplace as well, to see what's for sale.

Currently, there is a finance deal being offered for the Shark 6, which is advertised on the manufacturer's website.

In terms of standard inclusions, both of these utes comes with a high level of standard equipment. The Shark 6 comes in its only trim level available, while we’ve got the top-specced Cannon Alpha Ultra.

Both of these utes get electrically adjusting front seats with heating and ventilation, but the GWM ups the ante with a massage function for the two front seats, as well as a heated steering wheel. Both have fake leather trimming, while the GWM gets some parts of genuine leather trimming in the seats. The BYD uses real leather on the steering wheel.

The Cannon Alpha also gets a sliding and reclining second row, which is electric in the Ultra trim. The BYD doesn’t get this, nor does it get the sliding rear window. And as a result, the second row of the Cannon Alpha feels superior in terms of features and comfort.

The BYD gets a slightly larger infotainment display at 15.6 inches, versus 14.6 for the GWM. Both have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, with digital radio and native navigation, as well as a head-up display. This is all impressive stuff in isolation, and both utes bring big levels of technology firepower for the asking price.  

A 12-speaker sound system in the Shark outnumbers 10 in the GWM, while the Cannon Alpha is the only one to have a panoramic sunroof. 

Both utes also get a 360-degree camera system, along with parking sensors front and rear. And considering the plus-sized nature of both vehicles, you'll be depending on these features when you're squeezing into a carpark at the local shopping centre.

While it might not be the best thing for nimbleness, the amount of interior space afforded by both of these utes is great for those who are thinking about family usage. Long-limbed adults and fast-growing kids will fit in these two utes better than most others, and things like rearward-facing child seats can fit in better as well.

In terms of power outlets, the Shark has a household plug in the cabin and a dedicated range of vehicle-to-load outlets in the tub. The Cannon, on the other hand, has no household plug inside, and uses a special powerboard that plugs into the charging point for vehicle-to-load capabilities. This isn’t standard kit either, but comes at an additional cost.

Both of these utes come with a big infotainment display, which puts them both at the top of the segment in this regard. The BYD wins ultimate bragging rights in screen real estate with the 15.6-inch display, which can rotate between portrait and landscape orientations with the press of a button.

But still, the GWM isn't far off the pace with a 14.6-inch system (which, to be honest, is plenty big enough). Both of these units have a good range of standard features, like wired and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, digital radio, AM/FM and native navigation.

Both also have a companion app, which opens up remote functions like climate controls, location and locking/unlocking through your smartphone. The BYD ups the ante with an in-built karaoke app, but unfortunately a companion microphone is currently not available through official channels.

The GWM has a larger digital instrument cluster at 12.3 inches, which allows the driver to go through a variety of functions, views and readouts. The 10.25-inch system in the BYD Shark 6 is also good, but doesn't have the same range of functionality or user-friendliness as the GWM.

Although, having a physical volume dial down near the gear shifter is always a welcome inclusion in the BYD. The GWM would benefit from such a thing.

Both of these utes have a five-star ANCAP safety rating, which means there isn't a clear winner or loser in this regard. Individual scores in each category are correspondingly high too.

For the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV, adult occupants get an 84 per cent safety rating. Child occupants get a 93 per cent rating, while vulnerable road users (pedestrians) get an 82 per cent protection rating. The Cannon Alpha's safety assistance systems get an 81 per cent rating.

In comparison, the Shark 6 has an 85 per cent rating for adult occupants and 87 per cent rating for child occupants. Vulnerable road users (pedestrians) get a lower 74 per cent score. The Shark 6's onboard safety systems – including things like autonomous emergency braking and lane-keep assistance – get an 86 per cent score.

And correspondingly, there is plenty of safety technology included as standard kit in both of these utes. Both get the usual inclusions of autonomous emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring and a lane-departure warning system that includes lane-keep assistance and centring.

There's also a driver fatigue monitor in both vehicles, which operates via a camera mounted on the A-pillar. The GWM is a much improved offering in this regard these days, ever since a software update took it from unbearable to livable. Both still have their moments in this regard, and throw some false positives against safe driving. Which – in turn – takes your attention away from driving.

The lane-keep assistance system on both utes isn't too intrusive, but we noticed that the GWM was having a hard time unmarked country roads with soft shoulders and needed to be turned off.

Because of the more mechanical nature of the GWM Cannon Alpha's powertrain, it sits at a disadvantage in terms of efficiency.

There's more inertia of weight and spinning oily bits to motivate through things like a transfer case and differentials that the Shark simply doesn't have. This means it takes more energy to get things going and it is less efficient in terms of fuel and energy consumption.

We used an average of 10.5 litres per 100 kilometres with a low battery in the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV, and saw an average of 35kWh/100km on EV-only mode.

And from my testing, it seemed that the single electric motor and generator in the GWM isn't as good at harvesting back power under braking or charging the battery directly from the engine itself.

In comparison, the BYD Shark 6 picks up the advantage here. Where the engine spends most of its time as a straight power generator – and only spinning those front wheels at higher speeds in certain circumstances.

And with electric motors sitting closer to the wheels, they have a more efficient time in using the available power. It was better on fuel at 8.5L/100km, and used slightly less electricity as well at 30kWh/100km in EV mode.

But despite this, a larger battery and bigger fuel tank mean the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV can go further between both recharges and refills.

The best way to differentiate between these two plug-in hybrid utes is this: the BYD Shark 6 is a predominantly electric ute with some petrol assistance, while the Cannon Alpha PHEV is more petrol dominant with a garnish of electricity.

The driving experience of both vehicles underline this difference. While both can be driven in a pure EV mode – where the two motors of the BYD offer more grunt than the GWM – driving in hybrid mode brings a different flavour.

In the case of the BYD, petrol comes in mostly as a generator, running at steady revs as required by the drain on the battery by the two electric motors. When the battery level starts dropping down low, and your right foot is asking for some hard graft from the electric motors, that 1.5-litre engine starts revving harder – and not particularly enjoyably – as it looks to keep the volts up.

Whereas the GWM is a little different. Take-offs are still electric-only, but as you ask for more and see the battery level drop down, the Cannon Alpha starts running up and down the gears like a non-hybrid vehicle.

Both offer plenty of go-forward punch, and more than you can get on any diesel-powered ute. The BYD has the edge in outright pace, and that electric-first philosophy gives a smoother and more seamless acceleration.

But it's the Cannon Alpha plug-in hybrid that offers a better ride quality, which has a noticeable lack of that stiff jiggling that is often associated with four-wheel-drive utes. It's more composed over rough surfaces, where the BYD feels particularly brittle and can shudder through the body over pockmarked bitumen.

It's a similar story on corrugated dirt: the BYD Shark 6 tends to skip and bounce uncomfortably, whereas the Cannon Alpha PHEV is more smooth and controlled.

This is a simple game of winners and losers, with the GWM on top, daylight second, and the BYD in last. On the same test hill climb we often use for our assessment, the BYD Shark 6 was the first four-wheel-drive ute that was unable to complete the challenge.

Normally it's a case of how easily or confidently a car can get to the top, and reading between the lines for strengths and weaknesses. But in this case, it was all about the latter.

It seemed that the BYD wasn't able to deliver enough torque to the wheels for them to rotate over rocks and through ruts, which saw it pause and retry in an endless loop that went nowhere. It didn't matter which driving mode I was in (I tried them all), and how flat my foot was (all the way), the BYD was unable to scale the hill.

It wasn't helped by the relative stiffness in the suspension set-up, which puts more pressure on the traction-control system to solve problems.

In comparison, the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV was much better and closer to what you'd expect from a four-wheel-drive ute. The low-range transfer case allows for slow and easy progress through the ruts and up the hill.

Despite having slipperier conditions after rainfall, the GWM showed an adept off-road traction-control system to maintain good progress. And along with locking differentials front and rear (along with the lockable clutch-based centre 'differential'), you can harness good levels of traction and progress.

Hooked up with a 1.9-tonne trailer and loaded up with around 500kg of gear in the vehicle, the GWM Cannon Alpha didn't show any untoward activity in our tow test on the highway.

Because the GWM uses petrol power as the main source – assisted by electric power wherever possible – the driving experience is not terribly different from what you'll experience in any other diesel-powered dual-cab ute.

There's plenty of power available for towing, and the car is able to amble along with this kind of weight happily uphill and down dale.

Although, fuel consumption shoots up noticeably. After around 100km or so of highway towing, we saw an indicated average of around 17.5L/100km. That's a sizeable jump, and more than what you would get from a diesel-powered ute.

The Cannon Alpha runs the battery steadily when a trailer is hooked up, which helps for performance longevity on longer runs. However, it doesn't feel as compromised or strained as the BYD Shark 6 when towing at this kind of weight.

With the same trailer hooked up, and the exact same range of random ballast in the vehicle, we did the same highway run in the Shark 6 to see how it would fare.

And while there are some initial horror stories about the performance of the Shark 6 towing, recent software updates have improved things. Along with the fact that the Shark 6 doesn't like to see the battery percentage level drop down below 25 per cent, hooking up a trailer automatically moves that threshold up to 70 per cent.

So, the engine kicks over and hums steadily to increase the battery level, giving owners a healthy margin against running flat.

It seems to work as well. After a long run, the worst we saw was a periodic drop from 70 per cent to 64 per cent after a long uphill run holding the 100km/h speed limit. The petrol engine started really thrashing about at this stage, doing its darnedest to push power back into the battery pack. But once things flattened out, the percentage started creeping upwards again.

So, the car didn't fail the test. But at the same time, it wasn't overly confident or capable through the throttle and hearing the 1.5-litre engine working overtime. Fuel economy almost doubled as well, matching the Cannon Alpha PHEV towing figure at around 18L/100km.

While top-line information and a cursory glance would suggest that these two plug-in hybrid utes are very similar, this is missing a few critical details. Both have their advantages and disadvantages in each other's company, and buyers will need to weigh these things up in order to find the right pick.

On one hand, the BYD Shark 6 represents the best value for money out of these two vehicles, when you weigh up the powertrain, EV-only range and levels of features. It's faster, more efficient and has a better payload. However, it's woefully disappointing off-road, the ride quality isn't as good as the GWM, and the towing performance and capability are behind the pace.

On the other hand, the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV offers an impressive ride quality and significantly better off-road capability that buyers would expect from this segment.

The petrol-heavy powertrain does have its faults at times, and isn't EV-smooth like the BYD Shark. But when the battery is low, it doesn't get as flustered under heavy loads with the onus being put on the petrol side of the equation.

And while the asking price of the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV Ultra is at a higher point, the increase in dollars is offset by some extra standard kit and the more heavy-duty and four-wheel-drive-centric powertrain layout.

Considering the core responsibilities of a ute – in comparison to a regular passenger car – the GWM Cannon Alpha PHEV is the better of the two.

Buy the BYD if you don't really need a ute, but go for the GWM if you do.

Sam Purcell has been writing about cars, four-wheel driving and camping since 2013, and obsessed with anything that goes brum-brum longer than he can remember. Sam joined the team at CarAdvice/Drive as the off-road Editor in 2018, after cutting his teeth at Unsealed 4X4 and Pat Callinan’s 4X4 Adventures. Off-road writer of the Year, Winner - Sam Purcell

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