Deepal’s new electric SUV spotted ahead of imminent Australian launch

Deepal, a brand of the Chinese automotive giant Changan, announced earlier this year it would expand its local vehicle lineup with two new models. These were to include the E07, a ute-like SUV, and Deepal S05, an affordable small electric SUV.

The first Australian sightings of that S05 SUV – which is expected to sell for around $45,000 – have now emerged at a car park in Sydney. EV enthusiast Jim H, spotted two white variants of the S05, parked at Crowne Plaza in Macquarie Park.

These were shared on X and have since been confirmed to be evaluation vehicles according to the NSW registration system.

According to the records, these vehicles were manufactured in 2025 with a tare weight of 2,030 kg.

In March, Deepal, through its local distributor, Inchcape, first showcased the S05 SUV in Sydney at the Everything Electric show.

Then in April, the S05 was showcased again at the Melbourne Motor Show, with plans to launch the S05 at the tail end of the year. 

At that time, Cormac Cafolla, the general manager of Deepal Australia, said: “The S05 is the beautiful smaller sibling to the S07, making it a great choice for anyone who wants all the innovation and performance of our EV tech, but in a more compact package – it may be slightly smaller in size but as big in personality.”

The S05 is currently sold in the right-hand-drive market of Thailand and sits under the locally available S07 SUV. 

Looking at some basic specs,  the car is 4.62 metres long, similar to the Geely EX5 and it’s BEV version comes with a rear-wheel-drive setup, producing up to 175 kW of power and 320 Nm of torque.

This helps the car sprint from 0-100 km/h in just 7.3 seconds and has a top speed of 180 km/h.

Feeding the motor is a 56.1 kWh Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which can deliver up to 470 km of NEDC range. This is likely to be around 400 km on the WLTP cycle, which is comparable to similar SUVs in our market.

Diving into the charging specs, the Thailand-spec model has a peak fast-charging speed of over 150 kW with the right charger. This helps get the car from 30-80% in just 15 minutes.

AC charging is limited to 6.6 kW, which means that an overnight charge will fully charge the battery from a low state of charge.

Vehicle-to-load (V2L) is also on offer, making it easy to power things using the car’s large battery.

With the larger S07 coming into our market within the last 12 months, priced from $53,990 before on-roads, we can expect this model to be priced around the $45,000 mark.

We expect to hear more details on the S05’s local specs and pricing in the coming weeks, adding to Deepal’s local line-up up which was recently increased by the official launch of the E07 Multitruck.