2026 Deepal E07 Multitruck Performance AWD review

Now and again, there is a car that seriously stands out against the crowd to take a chance and do something different.

I don’t blame car manufacturers for playing it safe with the golden formula of practicality, features, and space. But it can also get stale, with minor facelifts introducing bigger screens and new safety technology that could drive you up the wall.

It leaves emerging car makers to pick up the slack and build something so weird it might just work, and that’s what Deepal has done with the E07 electric 'Multitruck'.

In all likelihood, it's the closest thing to a Tesla Cybertruck that we will be able to get our hands on Down Under. This thing is one of the most technologically impressive cars that you can buy for under $100,000.

This truly one-of-a-kind vehicle has everything from dual electric motors outputting 440kW and 645Nm, adaptive air suspension, an infotainment system the size of an IMAX cinema screen, and a rear end that opens up to a 'ute' tray.

It’s got the range, it’s got the power, and it’s certainly got the right price tag, but can it win over a market that was only introduced to the brand's name just last year? Well that's still a maybe.

You can approach this car from two perspectives: a privileged buyer who wants something weird and unique as a toy, in which the E07 is wonderful in that respect.

Or, from a more realistic perspective, you're an average buyer swallowed by a sea of EVs that all look the same, and want something unique, but can still handle day-to-day life as your only car.

I put the E07 through a proper torture test of the demanding expectations of an Australian buyer, along with a few ute tasks, and I was left with something that I dearly wanted to love, but it fell short in a few categories.

The Deepal E07 starts from $64,900 plus on-road costs for the RWD variant, and only one additional trim level is offered – the Performance AWD, which I was in, for $73,900 plus on-road costs.

All of the standard equipment is the same across the RWD and AWD variants, with the only difference being a power and torque upgrade from 252kW/365Nm to 440kW/645Nm.

Both trim levels get the 15.4-inch infotainment system, a part-nappa-leather interior, front and rear seats that give you a choice of 10 different massages as well as heating/cooling and 14 different adjustments, heated steering wheel, 18-speaker sound system, wireless charging pad, panoramic sunroof, and tech features that would leave Steve Jobs speechless.

Moving to the outside, standard equipment includes the spectacular electrically activated rear roof and tailgate, electric-folding seats that open the entire rear end, 21-inch alloy wheels, air suspension, LED lighting with high-beam assist, and electric-latched doors.

You tend to run out of breath talking about the features that are packed into this car, and even more out of breath talking about what's electronically controlled, but there are a lot of features for your money.

It’s hard to even really think of a competitor because it's seriously one-of-a-kind. Still, in terms of category competitors, it would be up against something like a Tesla Model Y Performance at $89,400 plus on-road costs, MG IM6 Performance at $80,990 drive-away, and the BYD Sealion 7 Performance at $63,990 plus on-roads.

All of these vehicles sit in the same aspect of a performance-focussed electric SUV under $100,000, and all sit around the mark of equally outrageous power.

But nothing really sits close to the E07 in terms of just a flat-out weird car that does wacky things.

The E07 certainly sits on the larger end of the scale, and its boxy exterior makes it look the part too.

At 5045mm long and 1996mm wide, it's close to a Toyota Kluger, but it's shorter than a Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux, and even an Isuzu MU-X.

Opening the driver's door welcomes you to an interior that is somehow minimalist and maximalist at the same time. You are punched in the face by the world's most orange interior, possibly at the expense of the Lorax exploding on the inside, which is an optional extra that costs you $500.

The reason I say there's not a lot and there’s a lot going on at the same time is that everything has been moulded into one curvy interior. The dash does away with an instrument cluster, and the dash, door cards, and seats are all colour-matched, but when you look closer, you tend to pick up on a lot of little details tucked away.

The front row has incredible showroom appeal, and it’s hard to know where to start. The seats have adjustments that the unprepared mind cannot comprehend. With the ability to fold out into a lounge chair, it's best compared to the first purchase of a middle-aged man following divorce. The bottom adjustment extends far enough to lift your legs off the ground, though I’m not sure I’d recommend driving like this.

Another feature you can flick through on your 15.4-inch infotainment system is the seat massagers that come equipped with everything from “buttocks mode” to “shoulder mode” and everything in between, including heating and cooling.

The centre console opens up to a storage bin with plentiful space, and the two cupholders are big enough for a variety of drink sizes.

The dual-phone charging pad is tucked away; however, it's angled so that your phone launches into the dash if you hit the brakes too hard.

The rear seats continue the oddities of this weird car. Again, you can find a plethora of massage functions, which you will unfortunately need to ask the driver or passenger to set up, and adjustments that do just about everything besides turn you upside down.

The second row is a section of the car I really didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did. There’s enough room for two adults to be carted around in a chauffeur-like fashion, and a nice little LCD screen for the rear climate controls.

Now here is where it gets a bit strange. The boot, tray, tub – or whatever you want to call it – space is opened externally via a button tucked under the tailgate. It drops the glass on the tailgate, props the glass cover slightly open to get your hands in, then either drops the tailgate or pushes the glass all the way up, transforming the back into an open-air tub.

Technically speaking, there are 524 litres with the seats up, smaller than something like a Toyota Kluger (552L), but you’re also not limited by a roof, because you can drive with the rear cargo cover open.

It gets even stranger when you hit the button for the rear seats to fold down, dropping the separating glass and partition to make the car into, essentially, a single-cab ute with 1654L of space.

It looks pretty cool, and all of these functions can be controlled via the screen or the aforementioned buttons in the boot, but I have to say that the whole thing is deathly slow – even if it all goes smoothly.

The quickest I could get the E07 down into a ute was just over a minute, with the majority of the time taken up by the seats going down. Each time I did it, there was something else that would go wrong. First, the seats kept getting caught on the seatbelts, then the roof would stop halfway up and would need another hit of the button, and sometimes the seats would simply stop halfway down.

While the whole system is seriously cool, I could not stop thinking about how many electric motors run all of these systems, and what's going to happen, say, a decade down the track? What happens if some of these just fail, and suddenly you can’t use the entire rear portion of your car?

It’s probably best not to think too hard about it, but hopefully Deepal is here to stay in Australia.

The Deepal E07 comes equipped with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto controlled via the 15.4-inch touchscreen.

The trade-off for this streamlined, minimalist interior is that everything is controlled via the touchscreen, which can prove tricky at times.

Say you want to turn off your "buttocks mode" massage, and the air-conditioning feels a little too cold, and a playlist you don’t like is playing at the same time – it’s a good 20 to 30 seconds of looking at the screen to change all of these.

Luckily, the screen is on the better end of the spectrum when it comes to actually processing these moves. A touch of lag shines through, but for the majority, it works pretty well.

Many of the processes need to be streamlined. Opening the car processes menu is easy to get lost in – which is cool if you are a car nut and want control over everything the car does, but overwhelming if you’re a regular buyer.

The screen also does all kinds of cool things: there's another electric motor that tilts the screen toward or away from you, a camping/relaxation mode that tilts your seat back, and a light-show mode that utilises the exterior lamps and sound system.

Mimicking Tesla, the car has an internal and external camera setup that stores recent trips within the car’s storage and anything it deems to be “emergency footage”, like hard braking and rapid acceleration, can be found here for future viewing.

It does feel a little weird to have a camera inside the car, but Deepal has fitted a security slider that blocks the view when you do not need it.

The system works pretty well, neglecting the need for a dashcam, and offering a 360-degree view of any video you want to save.

Further techy things include an app for your phone that eliminates the need to carry the physical key, set your climate control remotely, check vehicle status, and do over-the-air updates – every new car comes with a two-year free membership, but users do not need the app to control the car.

The Deepal E07 has yet to be tested by ANCAP, but Drive will cover the results when it is.

The S07 that it shares the platform with has been tested and received a five-star rating, excelling with a 95 per cent score for adult occupant protection.

The Deepal E07 comes equipped with a plethora of safety tech from the base model, with no need to pay extra for more features.

There’s a lot to be said about the safety systems in this car, and they're mostly bad, so I’ll start with the good. Adaptive cruise control holds your speed perfectly, the AEB doesn’t cut in unnecessarily, the cameras are ultra-clear and high-definition, and the safe exit alert stopped me from knocking a cyclist off by opening my door.

For the not-so-good, the driver monitoring system nearly caused me a mental breakdown with how infuriatingly annoying it is. If your eyes are not facing the road directly, it tells you off in a condescending tone, and especially freaks out when trying to adjust anything through the screen while driving.

Not only will it tell you to “Please keep safety in mind” when doing a head check, it’ll also chime randomly if you do anything remotely unexpected by the car’s monitoring system.

I started the test with everything set to full intervention and turned off things that annoyed me as time went on. One of the first things to go was the full lane-centring function.

The lane-centring felt like it was continuously getting confused about where it needed to be and when. There were a few close calls with it veering off the road and yanking the steering wheel out of my hands when it decided that I wasn’t centred in the lane enough.

If it wasn’t trying to steer me where I didn’t want to go, it was constantly making abrupt steering adjustments where other brands would simply steer you within the lane.

The lane-centring, along with the adaptive cruise control system, is reluctant to let you change lanes yourself when activated. You need to hit the indicator and let the car decide when it feels comfortable to overtake.

I will give the assisted lane changes some praise, as it does a pretty good job, but it’s a weird feeling to need to trust the car to change lanes for you.

The system has a long way to go, and I’m hoping that Deepal can employ an over-the-air update for it, because it seriously ruins the basis of a good system.

The E07 comes with a seven-year/160,000km vehicle warranty, eight-year/240,000km high-voltage battery warranty, and 12 months of Deepal roadside assistance – which you’ll likely need, considering it does not come with a spare wheel.

Deepal also offers a seven-year/140,000km capped-price servicing scheme for its new vehicles, with servicing intervals spaced every 20,000km or 12 months – whichever is first.

Costs range between $161.33 and $640.10 per year, which adds up to $1984.40 for five years of ownership or $3143.91 for seven years, which is expensive for an electric vehicle.

To put it into perspective, Tesla models do not have service intervals – just condition-based checks if issues arise. Genesis is free, and BYD tends to sit well under $2000. Somehow, the Deepal E07 is also more expensive to service than petrol-powered counterparts.

$2000 over what period? ^

Insurance is also a whopping $4063 for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. That’s double the price of the quote we got when we reviewed the S07 in April 2025.

Granted, the E07 does have twin motors and a lot more power than the RWD S07 we tested; however, there isn’t a large disparity in price between the two, and certainly not enough to warrant paying twice as much in insurance.

Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances, but the Deepal E07 is seriously expensive to insure.

For a car this size, with twin motors, you'd expect energy efficiency to be low, but it’s quite fair against its competitors.

Deepal claims that the dual-motor Performance variant can get 510km of range with its 89.98kWh battery, which works out to be 17.6kWh per 100 kilometres.

A mixture of country, highway and city driving returned a reading of 18.5kWh/100km, which is pretty close to the WLTP range stated on the specification sheet – and that’s with the majority of the test spent in comfort mode, which has less battery regeneration than eco mode, so there’s a real possibility to hit that claimed consumption with careful driving.

It wasn’t until the control portion of my test was over that I spent most of my time in sport mode, which bumped efficiency to beyond 20kWh/100km, which is still awesome to see on the dash during spirited driving.

Comparatively speaking, the Tesla Model Y Performance (one of the more efficient performance EV SUVs) has a claimed consumption figure of 15.8kWh/100km, whereas the IM6 Performance is upwards of 23kWh/100km.

The bonus is that the Deepal E07 has a maximum DC charge rate of 240kW – meaning you can charge from 30–80 per cent in 15 minutes according to the brand – but AC wall chargers are limited to 7kW, which will take 13 hours to go from 0–100 per cent.

Around town, it is quite pleasant to drive. It handles mundane suburbia relatively well, the active safety systems switched off, and with the vehicle in one of the sedate driving modes. The steering is awfully light, but it works well when navigating city streets and tight car parks.

But, while it might not look like a sports car, being equipped with 440kW means it needs to handle all that power when it comes down to it – and that’s where it falls flat on its face.

There are throttle lag and sticky throttle issues, because this car uses an electric throttle there's no physical connection from the pedal to the electric motors - while this is fine for most car the Deepal has a noticeable delay between actually pressing the throttle and it being transferred to the motors, it's the same when you take your foot off the pedal. That makes for a terrifying combination of a 2440kg car that can go from zero to 100km/h in 3.96 seconds.

Sure, we are talking about milliseconds that the throttle sticks on, but that’s still noticeable. I’m hoping this can be fixed over the air or at a service, because it's simply unacceptable.

The brakes are another sore point for the E07. Again, this thing weighs nearly 2.5 tonnes, but it feels like the brakes have not been optimised for that - they're spongy and lack feel, while also feeling like it simply does not have the clamping power to pull this behemoth. While the majority of its time will be spent running to and from the shops or carting the family around, having access to all that power still means the brakes need to keep up with the car, irrespective of what it's going to be doing in its day-to-day life.

The air suspension is a nice-to-have at this price point, and it genuinely does feel comfortable on a day-to-day basis. It feels strange flicking through the driving modes and feeling a dramatic change in ride height as the air compressor kicks on.

The same goes for the road and wind noise, which is nice and refined. I’d say it leans closer to the quieter side of the spectrum for an EV, when these sorts of noises become more obvious.

But the second you hit a twisty road, the handling capabilities are lacklustre, and you suddenly feel the weight of the vehicle. It feels like it has a very high centre of gravity, which can be odd for an EV, given that most of its mass is spread across under the floor in battery cells.

It tends to wallow and become unstable when hitting undulations in the road at high speed, and when you take corners faster, it rolls hard into them, putting a lot of weight on the outside of the tyres – thus limiting your grip.

Yes, it's not a sports car, but it needs better handling to match its power.

I have my doubts I would’ve been this critical had I been in a rear-wheel-drive version with around half the power of the AWD. It sounds more sedate, and better suited to the E07's positioning and body style. As for the Performance AWD, too much power and not enough control to keep up with the speed.

I really wanted to love this car. Sure, I’d say it teeters on the ugly side, but it’s got some trick electronics and an undeniably cool vibe. However, it simply does not drive how it should, given its power outputs.

The E07 has a tow rating of 1500kg braked and 750kg unbraked, which should be more than enough to handle a box-trailer for tip runs or even a small caravan.

Given that it’s not a real ute, more of a cross between a ute and an SUV, you’re not really going to be able to do ute things with it, like tow a car trailer or a self-sufficient big caravan for nomadic activities.

A calculated payload of 610kg is based on the tare weight, so again, it won’t replace your HiLux or Ranger as a full-on tradie vehicle.

The Deepal E07 is a seriously strange car, which I mean in a good way. If you’d personally describe yourself as eccentric and maybe even a little odd, I’d say it’s worth looking at, but you’d need to accept the pitfalls that this car has.

Over time, I’m sure you’d learn to manage its quirks, but it's simply a difficult car to come to terms with, at least initially.

I really wanted to like this car, because it's something different. I thought I could finally be convinced to consider an electric vehicle as my next purchase, but it's simply not the one for me.

Not only that, but the servicing costs and insurance prices are next-level expensive, which makes the Deepal an even harder sell.

But all things considered, the purchase price seems to be appropriate for the amount of equipment you get in the car. If you want something that can handle city life with the versatility of a part-time ute, I don’t see why you wouldn’t consider the E07.

Personally, I’d probably be happier to save a few bucks and jump into a rear-wheel-drive model with a more moderate power output. That said, I hope Deepal is listening when I say this car really needs some adjustments.

Zane Dobie comes from a background of motorcycle journalism, working for notable titles such as Australian Motorcycle News Magazine, Just Bikes and BikeReview. Despite his fresh age, Zane brings a lifetime of racing and hands-on experience. His passion now resides on four wheels as an avid car collector, restorer, drift car pilot and weekend go-kart racer.

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