GAC Aion UT Review, 430km and 150kW for $31,990

The GAC Aion UT costs $31,990 drive-away and comes with a 60kWh battery, 430km of WLTP range and frisky 150kW. The BYD Dolphin that matches those numbers costs about $5,000 more.

GAC Aion UT $31,990 is drive-away offer means that’s the money that leaves your account. The cheapest BYD Dolphin looks cheaper at $29,990, but that’s before on-road costs, with a puny 45kWh battery, only 340km of range and a fun-destroying 70kW, which is less than half the power. Match the UT on battery, range and motor and you’re into the Dolphin Premium at around $36,990, also before on-roads. The MG4 Urban is the only one priced level, at $31,990 drive-away, and the GWM Ora is $33,990 drive-away.

What the GAC Aion UT Gives You for the Money

The GAC Aion UT uses a 60kWh (LFP) lithium iron phosphate pack, with 430km WLTP, which we found fairly close to our driving experience. GAC claims 16.4kWh per 100km, again, not too shy of the mark. The single front motor makes a frisky but modest 150kW/210Nm, for a 7.3 seconds to 100km/h and a top speed of 160km/h. Charging is at 11kW AC and 87kW DC, taking 30% to 80% in 24 minutes. There’s vehicle-to-load, so it will run a fridge or a set of tools off the pack. GAC also includes a 22kW wall charger, a 10-amp trickle cable and a Type 2 cable, three things most legacy brands charge extra for. NOTE: the wall charger is not a smart charger so scheduling might have to be done from the car. We didn’t try it, but give it a go.

Plug into a 350kW unit and you still draw 87kW, so the 24 minute figure is what you get on a road trip whatever the bay is capable of. Plan a Melbourne run around it.

Above:  2026 GAC UT Premium BEST IN CLASS with a few bugs Review

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The GAC Aion UT starts at $30,990 drive-away for the first 600 buyers

0-100 km/h in 7.3 seconds from the 150kW motor

Rear three-quarter view of the AION UT showing distinctive segmented tail lights.

Portrait-oriented infotainment dominates the centre stack

14.6-inch infotainment and 8.8-inch driver display

905mm of rear legroom in the compact Aion UT

Panoramic glass sunroof and generous rear headroom in the Luxury grade.

689 litres with rear seats folded flat

The AION UT’s compact crossover silhouette with short overhangs.

AION UT badging and distinctive rear light design.

ABOVE: The 2026 Aion UT

The Clever Packaging

The GAC Aion UT is 4,270mm long, much shorter than a Corolla, and it has a capacious 2,750mm wheelbase with vast rear legroom. Without a dinosaur-burning engine to house, the front wheels sit almost at the corners and the base of the windscreen moves forward, so the cabin takes back the space a petrol car spends on machinery. We called it the car the Fiat 500e should have been, and a week in the back seat hasn’t changed that impression. Rear legroom belongs to a car half a metre longer.

The boot is 321 litres, or 689 with the rear seats down, and there’s a huge underfloor bin for the charging cables and other bits and bobs. There’s no frunk, because the motor and its gubbins fill the nose to the gunnels. The spare is a repair kit, which on 215/55R17 tyres is the usual modern annoyance and a pain in the bum outside the city.

GAC Aion UT’s Cabin

The GAC Aion UT cabin is a nice surprise at the price. Light trim, a low dash and large glass make it feel airy rather than cheap, but the plastics are cheap and scratchy. For this money what else do you expect? Little wafts of cotton wool covered in gold carbon fibre infused unicorn? The front seats are powered and heated, and hold you without pinching your love handles. There’s no head-up display, but there’s a proper driver’s screen, which a Tesla at twice the money does without.

The 14.6-inch portrait screen runs on the Adagio, a system written over Android Open Source Project. AOSP is the free version of Android that carries no Google certification, so yes, dozens of car makers do it to save money. Menus are logical once learned, but the screen occasionally glitches, which is the platform rather than GAC’s skin over it. We saw the same thing in the GAC M8. Putting the climate controls in that screen is the bigger problem, because changing fan speed on a moving car means looking away from the road to find a target that has no edges to feel for. Trying to remember “Hello Baby” might help, but you sound like a bit of a twat using the GAC voice control. An iPhone 17 Pro Max often failed to connect on its own, and the passenger airbag warning parks itself over the Google Maps controls, so exiting, searching or using the microphone takes some fiddling. It was our biggest problem and must be fixed tout suite, and the touer, the suiter.

The $4,000 step to the Luxury buys a delicious ventilated driver’s seat, a panoramic sunroof with an electric blind, a power tailgate, wireless phone charging, power-folding mirrors, an auto-dimming rear-view mirror and a rear USB-A socket. The wireless pad and the ventilated seat are the two that get used daily and that we missed the most.

How Does the GAC Aion UT Drive

GAC tuned the suspension soft and comfy. Broken suburban goat tracks, tram rails and speed humps all pass underneath without complaint, which is more than some boasty-pants Euro snobs can say. Around town it feels Zen in a way the specification sheet can’t infuse into a buyer’s mind. The rear end is a torsion beam, which can be choppy, rather than the more expensive and sophisticated independent suspension we love so much. Halfway through a corner and the back of the car skips sideways, and the faster you’re going the more of a conversation it becomes. Nothing alarming happens, but it asks you to slow down rather than press on. The steering is extremely light, but quick enough to make car parks easy. There’s no pretence of feel through it, and that’s something all electric steering assisted cars have in common. Anything you think you feel is an illusion.

150kW in a 1,670kg front-driver is more than the front tyres want. The 7.3 second claim holds on a clean surface and the car is frisky at the lights, but bury the throttle on a damp roundabout and the traction control has a conniption.

The Smart Cruise Is Broken

Ordinary cruise control behaves itself. You pick a following distance, the car holds it, and the driver monitoring can be switched off and stays off. Select the smart cruise with ICC lane steering and the following distance stops being selectable and locks to the longest setting, the driver monitor turns itself back on however many times you kill it, and the lane steering wanders like a drunken sailor. Is it another software gremlin in the Android Open Source Project base rather than anything mechanical? We did the over-the-air update and it didn’t fix our foible.

Then there are the bongs. Every drive starts with silencing a list of warnings written into European law and inherited by EuroNcap and ANCAP and the UT is no better and no worse than anything else that wants 5 star ratings, foibles not withstanding. The cure is to leave the smart cruise switched off, because with it off the warnings silence for the rest of the drive and stay silenced. What you can’t do is make that stick between trips, so you switch it off again every time you get in.

Finally, the distance to the car in front failed us twice. despite working fine for most of the time, twice it acted as though it was not working period. we shot up behind the car in front, one of which we caught during filming the review.

Top Tip: Turn off ICC until the OTA fixes the bug. You’ll still need to silence driver monitoring etc each time you start the car, but they will stay off until the next start.

GAC Aion UT Price and Verdict

The Premium is $31,990 and the Luxury $35,990, both drive-away on the introductory offer, and GAC confirmed a cheaper entry model under $30,000. GAC sold 1,008 cars in its first month on the Australian market in July, 148 of them the UT, which is a start rather than a result. Buyers of any new brand are buying a dealer network that doesn’t exist yet, and that’s the real risk here rather than anything about the car. GAC answers it with eight years and unlimited kilometres on the vehicle and eight years or 200,000km on the battery, which is as long as anyone in the class offers.

Lobby groups have warned of new brands, which are claimed to be unproven with limited dealer networks and shaky futures. Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Holden, Dodge, Chrysler, DS and many other brands have left Australia, and its drivers, without so much as a by-your-leave. More brands will follow, new or old. The market will decide but here is a snapshot of the first 7 months in Australian cars sales. Read it if you want an insight, the numbers don’t lie, legacy brands are in deep shyte.

What the GAC Aion UT does is deliver the range, the space and the power that used to cost $45,000 for $31,990, at a point when Fiat stopped importing the 500e and the brands that spent five years explaining why cheap electric cars were impossible are watching their share fall. The compromises are a slightly nervous rear end, climate controls in a touchscreen, no spare wheel and an 87kW charging ceiling. Not one of them is worth what the alternatives want for the same battery and the same power. Buy the Premium. The sunroof and the power tailgate are pleasant, but a power tailgate on a hatchback this size is slower than your own arm.

We also covered what the first over-the-air update changed on this car.

GAC Aion UT Specifications

More GAC Stories

• 2026 GAC Aion UT OTA Quickie Review
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Written by Alan Zurvas

Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.