PICKING UP ON A TREND (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

Maxus tries its hand at a full-electric pick-up, the T90EV. Jonathan Crouch briefs you on it.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 52

The Maxus T90EV was the UK's very first all-electric pick-up, but it certainly won't be the last. There are some compromises to make if you're to make the switch away from diesel in a truck of this kind, but the tax advantages are significant. A certain kind of customer might be tempted.

Backgroundword count: 106

The last bastion of combustion power is the pick-up truck. But even this rough and ready genre must one day fall to the EV revolution. Here, it already has. Enter the Maxus T90EV, our market's first full electric pick-up. This Chinese contender, sold in Thailand and Pakistan as the MG Extender, isn't quite as much of a genre-revolutionary product as it might first appear. Actually, all Maxus brand owner SAIC has done is rip out the normal T90's diesel engine and add a heavy drive battery to the same chassis. Still, it's the first EV pick-up we've seen - and that makes it very significant indeed.

Driving Experienceword count: 267

Let's address the elephant in the room right up-front: this T90EV doesn't have what you might think would be a prerequisite for most pick-ups; 4WD. Maxus says that likely customers - apparently people like highway agencies and country vets - think ground clearance of higher significance. Which is unfortunate because by pick-up standards, there's not a huge amount of that - 187mm (compare with the 310mm you get in a Toyota Hilux for instance). But those customers will be expecting to make compromises for the huge advantage of never having to fuel up ever again; except with charge - Maxus claims you'll be replenishing the 88.6kWh battery every 219 miles. It isn't particularly fast for an EV away from rest, but feels quite rapid for a pick-up. Top speed is limited to 80mph, but you wouldn't really want to go much faster than that anyway. It certainly feels weird to travel almost silently in a pick-up, without a rumbly diesel up-front. There's a rather intrusive Acoustic Vehicle Alert pedestrian safety noise under 20mph - and a firm ride. But no brake regen paddles or settings to better harvest energy back into the battery. You'll have to like light steering, which makes the T90 easy to manoeuvre but gives very little cornering feedback. For off-tarmac use, Hill Descent Control is standard: and Maxus says that a 4x4 version is coming in 2024. For this rear-driven variant, the approach and departure angles are, respectively, 27 and 24-degrees - which actually is better than we expected: a diesel Hilux manages 29 and 26-degrees. There's a decent 550mm wading depth too.

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