Another new Chinese car brand. Another SUV. Another name Australians have never heard of.
It's easy to become a little numb to it.
Then something like the iCaur V25 turns up.
It looks somewhere between an old-school off-roader and something designed for people who have never owned an old-school off-roader. Boxy body. Round lights. Spare wheel on the back. Orange paint highly recommended.
But underneath it is something considerably more interesting.
The V25 is an extended-range electric vehicle. Its 33.7kWh battery is claimed to provide up to 150km of electric driving, while a 1.5-litre turbo petrol engine acts as a generator when the battery needs help. Rear- and all-wheel-drive versions are expected, with the AWD capable of towing up to 1800kg.
Watt does that mean?
Potentially, quite a lot.
We've said from the beginning that WATTCAR isn't interested in putting every vehicle with a battery under the electric-car umbrella.
If you can't plug it in, it isn't a WATTCAR. And plugging it in needs to matter.
On paper, 150km of electric range matters.
For plenty of Australian owners, that could mean doing virtually all normal weekly driving electrically, then having petrol-generated electricity available when the city disappears in the rear-view mirror.
That's a different proposition from a conventional hybrid.
And one we're interested in testing.
Then there's the price.
We don't know it.
And that's important, because estimates aren't prices.
Early industry speculation has suggested somewhere around $40,000–$50,000, but Australian pricing and final specification have not been confirmed.
If it arrives somewhere around there, things get interesting very quickly.
If it doesn't, we'll judge it accordingly.
Possible contender?
Absolutely.
Winner? No idea.
That's rather the point.
The iCaur V25 goes onto our WATTCAR COTY 2027 Possible Contenders list.
Now we'd like the keys.