GWM Cannon vs Lexus LM 500H

What's the difference?

It’s often said the poor man pays twice, and there’s no doubt that some budget cars are destined to be throwaways once the warranty period expires (which doesn’t explain paper drinking straws). The GWM Cannon doesn’t give off that vibe. Rather, it stands out as a way to get nearly all of the experience of a similar vehicle costing $20,000 or even $30,000 more.

We’d like dual-zone climate-control, a shifter that shifts manually, and the driver assistance programs need polish. But the fundamentals are there and its fair to say the Cannon has never been a bigger threat to the dual-cab establishment.

The specification of the flagship model seems odd to us, but this car, the Ultra is destined to be the volume seller anyway and, viewed through that prism, along with the improved performance and towing, the whole Cannon ute thing starts to gel.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with meals provided.

The Lexus LM 500h is luxurious, comfortable, practical, easy to drive and expensive. While it may appear to be the ultimate family car, with only four seats it's limited in terms of how many kids and their friends you can carry. On top of that, the privacy screen introduces accessibility issues to the kids you wouldn't encounter on other vehicles. If you are thinking of a Lexus people mover as your next family car I'd suggest looking at the LM 350h which has seven seats and no privacy screen. If you’re looking at a business class executive van the LM 500h would be perfect. 

As mid-cycle refreshes (read: facelifts) go, this is a biggie. Even the way the company refers to its product has changed and what was the GWM Ute is now officially the GWM Cannon. Beyond the semantics, the facelifted Cannon is slightly bigger, has a new look inside and out, gets more performance and towing capacity.

The size increase amounts to an extra 6mm in length and 13mm in width, but GWM admits that’s all in the bumpers and the fender flares. If anything, the overall look is a bit more subtle, with a new bonnet, grille, fog lights, flares and a new tailgate with the GWM logo embossed into it. Even so, there’s a still a suspicion that GWM doesn’t mind if folks look at the Cannon and imagine a full-sized American pick-up.

Inside, the trend of twin screens continues, this time with a pair of same-size 12.3-inch screens; one for the driver’s information and a central one for everything else. A rectangular theme makes up the dashboard’s elements including the basic structure and even the shape of the air vents.

Getting the vehicle to handle ever increasing payloads and towing limits has called for constant revisions in cooling systems, suspension and, most recently, the vehicle’s body-on-chassis structure to improve capacity while still meeting in-house and engineering requirements.

The LM 500h doesn't look real. More like a concept vehicle with its vertical face wearing that enormous grille. Feels like if you watched it for long enough you’d catch it transforming into some kind of robot. Yet, at the same time its styling is elegant and prestigious.

I have a confession to make. I used this Lexus as my office. Its interior is that comfortable and spacious. I'm also a parent and there were times where it was the quietest place to get some work done.

It also let me observe people's reactions as they walked past with their dogs not knowing what was going on inside behind those tinted windows. The people that noticed were clearly car enthusiasts as they knew what they were looking at and couldn't pass without gaping it awe.

The LM 500h’s interior is superbly plush with thick carpets, beautiful copper metallic trim and nappa leather seats.

As I’ve said, the cockpit up front is less luxurious than the extravagant first class section in the back behind that dividing wall.

And yes, I’ve seen large screens before but nothing that stretches the width of the vehicle.

Having twin screens of the same size in the cabin makes for a techy look, but in reality, the centre screen is less than perfect. That’s because it’s clearly made for a left-hand-drive car and some of the menu items are w-a-y over to the left, out of reach for a driver of normal stature. The script is also pretty small in places, and those who wear reading glasses might find it all a bit indecipherable, especially on the move.

That Top-Gun T-bar shifter is also a bit confusing at first thanks to the Park button placement, but it’s also a bit baffling when you can’t work out how to select gears manually even though you’ve shifted into M (Manual) mode. There just doesn’t seem to be any way to get the shifter to, er, shift. And that’s because it doesn’t. Instead, you use the shifter to select Manual mode and then use the paddle shifters on the steering wheel to actually change the gears.

The front centre console is home to a single USB-A and USB-C charging port as well as a 12-volt outlet, and there are plenty of storage cubbies around the cabin. The interior plastics on the Ultra, meanwhile, actually feel better than they look. The door cappings, especially, look a bit hard and brittle but are actually quite compliant to the touch. Our other observation would be that the standard sunroof opening is actually quite small and there seems to be lots of buffeting from it at speed.

The rear seat is better than some dual-cabs by having a more rational back-rest angle, and there’s lots of foot-room under the front chairs. There’s also plenty of head-room in the back, mainly because the roof lining dips up at the point the sunroof stops (perhaps explaining the small sunroof opening). Rear seat passengers will also appreciate the pair of charging ports, central air vents and the fold-down armrest.

The tray of the Cannon is competitively sized (and, crucially, will accept a standard pallet between the wheel arches) but the spray-on bedliner looks a bit half-finished at its edges; almost as if the masking process before spraying was rushed. Still, the sprayed-on surface itself is grippy and feels like it would be fairly durable. Our biggest complain would be a lack of tie-down points. There are two up front which are too high to be really useful, and two in the rear corners. The problem there is that heavy loads which need the lower tie-downs would ideally be placed farther forward in the tray, not right at the back.

There’s some nice thinking with the damped tailgate, though, and the bonnet also lifts on gas struts which is a bit of a novelty on this type of vehicle. The fold-out tailgate step is another neat touch and is easy to use, even if it’s still a decent step up to get a foot squarely on it. And the sports bar? About as useful as anybody else’s version of the same thing. Which is to say, not very.

The new, bigger engine has enabled GWM to bump the Cannon’s towing maximum to a competitive 3500kg with a braked trailer. All variants apart form the XSR also have a 995kg payload which is also among the better figures in this class of vehicle.

You might be able to take Lexus out of Toyota but it's very hard to take Toyota out of Lexus and this particularly applies to the practicality of the LM 500h.

Every day I discovered new compartments, tray tables and storage areas. There are so many cabinets, lockers and hidey holes that we almost left my belongings (an entire family of plushie toy capybaras) behind because there are so many places to check.

Of course, I'm talking about the rear compartment here because up front there's not much storage. In fact, it proved to be quite a problem in that I had nowhere to put my bag with somebody sitting next to me and no area behind the front seats to stow it, either.

Talking of seats, the LM 500h only has four of them, with two up front and two in the rear. Up front, the seats are supportive and large, but the rear seats - those are, well... have a look at the images.

We’re talking two large captain's chairs that look as though they’ve been removed from the first class section of a plane.

And while this might be suitable for businesses shuttling a couple of executives to and from meetings, for a family, even with two children, the extra couple of seats a third row offers would come in handy.

The LM 350h has seven seats over three rows and no privacy screen. A far better choice for families.

For device charging there are USB ports up front and in the rear. There are wireless phone chargers for those in the back seats but not up front.

The LM 500h has a cargo capacity of 752 litres with all seats in place.

The Lexus LM 500h sits at the top of its range and is without a doubt one of the most expensive people movers on Earth with its list price of $220,888.

As you would imagine the standard features list is as extensive as it is extravagant.

For starters, while the regular LM 350h has two rows of seating in the rear (seven seats all up, including the front two), the 500h has the third row removed and just two super luxurious and enormous fully reclining seats fill the entire space. It’s like a theatre back there.

That theatre theme keeps going with a media screen in the back so large it stretches the width of the vehicle. Seriously, it's a 48-inch screen to watch movies or connect to your device.

The sound system is probably the best I’ve experienced - a spine tinglingly incredible 23-speaker Mark Levinson set-up.

What else can I tell you? Those rear seats are upholstered in beautifully soft semi-aniline leather. They’re heated and ventilated with a massaging function and... ridiculously comfortable.

There’s four-zone climate control, windows which have an electronic shade that turns the glass opaque, there are wireless phone chargers in the doors and carpet throughout so thick you sink down into it as you step inside.

Our LM 500h was upholstered in the 'Solis White' leather which also brings contrasting and mesmerising copper metallic trim.

Oh, and there’s a wall with an electric glass screen that can be raised or lowered to separate the rear passengers from the driver.

I should have mentioned this earlier. The kids loved it, but these parents spent a lot of time telling the 10- and three-year old not to put the screen up again.

The rear occupants, aka the kids, can also lock the screen in place. Which they did, and so sound proof is the dividing wall that we can only just hear their uproarious laughter.

Up front, the cockpit is comfortable but it’s clear all the space and luxury is for those being driven around.

Still, the front seats are leather with heating and ventilation, there’s a 14-inch media screen and 12.4-inch digital instrument cluster, plus a head-up display. Sat nav, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are also standard.

The engine bay is the scene of perhaps the biggest improvements GWM has made to this vehicle. While the previous version’s eight-speed automatic was good enough, there was a feeling out there that the 2.0-litre turbocharged engine with its 120kW and 400Nm was seen as a bit marginal when fully loaded or hitched up to a decent-sized trailer.

So, the new 2.4-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel (lifted from the Cannon’s Alpha big brother) makes for 15kW extra (135kW) and a meaningful 80Nm boost to take torque to 480Nm. The eight-speed automatic is now a nine-speed unit.

The basic four-wheel-drive system of the Cannon is a permanent one which constantly drives all four wheels. (Unless, that is, you engage the Eco drive mode which disconnects the front axle to save fuel). The dual-range transfer-case gives low-range ratios for off-roading and there are multiple drive modes including Standard, Sport and Eco. An electronic rear differential lock is also standard.

But the flagship makes the move to a part-time all-wheel-drive set-up which, to some may seem like a backward step as it removes the option to use high-range four-wheel-drive on the bitumen, which is a huge plus when towing on a damp road, for instance. Instead, the XSR can select two or four-wheel drive as well as the same choice of high or low range.

Fundamentally, unless you’re on a slippery, off-road surface, the XSR must stay in rear-wheel-drive only. But you do what GWM calls All Terrain Response which includes Mud, Snow and Sand modes, as well as an extra drive called Expert, which allows the driver to tailor various responses. The off-road orientation of the XSR model also dictates a front differential lock.

Front suspension on all Cannons is independent by coil springs, while the solid rear axle is suspended by leaf springs.

The LM 500h is a petrol-electric hybrid with a 2.4-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine which makes 202kW/460Nm and works in concert with two electric motors.

The front motor makes 64kW/292Nm and the rear makes 76kW/169Nm. The combined maximum power output of the two motors and the petrol engine is 273kW.

The LM 500h is all wheel-drive and has a six-speed automatic transmission.

Get this: Despite more power and torque, the official combined fuel economy figure has fallen a whole litre from 9.4 litres per 100km for the old car to 8.4 litres for the new version. That also means lower tailpipe emissions.

Speaking of which, the engine in the Cannon is Euro 5 compliant (rather than Euro 6) so it doesn’t require AdBlue. Taking into account the 78-litre fuel tank and the real-world fuel consumption figure of 10 litres per 100km, bank on a theoretical range of around 750km before you need to find a service station.

Lexus says after a combination of urban and open roads the LM 500h should use 6.6L/100km. In our own testing we found consumption was higher at 9.4L/100km.

Worth noting my driving environment was mainly a hilly suburban one filled with school drop offs. Achieved some personal bests this week, with one long run to Sydney’s outskirts, only to return in nightmarish peak hour traffic.

Premium (95 RON) fuel is required and the tank size is 60 litres. In theory the driving range is a smidge more than 900km, which drops to around 640km using our real-world average.

On the road, it doesn’t take long to appreciate the benefits of the new, torquier engine. Although there’s a little diesel clatter at idle and a slightly gruff soundtrack beyond that, it all soon smooths out above about 1200rpm. From there, it’s quite a rush as the engine is clearly tuned for bottom-end torque rather than top-end rush and, in this type of vehicle, that makes perfect sense.

If anything, the nine-speed transmission seems a little hesitant to set sail until there’s some boost for the taking, and this can feel a bit weird when you’re trying to merge into freeway traffic or jump into a space in traffic. The gearbox also reveals itself to be a bit too keen to hold on to the current gear when your throttle position and speed suggest a shift up would be logical. That said, when it does upshift, the shift quality is extremely good with a crispness that means the multiple gears never seem an overwhelming number.

The ride only starts to get rowdy on faster, really bumpy sections where the leaf-spring rear axle starts to run out of reaction time, but below that threshold, the Cannon rides remarkably sanely and corners relatively flatly into the bargain.

Our main gripe is with the steering, but only in terms of the driver-assistance dumbing down of the whole experience. With the lane-keeping assistance switched off, the steering reveals itself to be fairly neutral with a slight dead-spot at the straight-ahead (normal enough for off-road vehicles). But with lane-keeping active, the Cannon’s constant corrections and nudging at the tiller will drive you mad. It’s too sensitive, too aggressive and too insistent, and we suspect GWM knows it.

Certainly, the brand professes to be constantly refining these assistance packages but it’s also fair to say that some carmakers simply have a better grasp of this tech.

Off road, the Cannon is a pretty sure bet to take you anywhere 99 per cent of the population will want to go 99 per cent of the time. The limiting factor here will be the tyres, and with a pretty non-aggressive tread pattern on the standard hoops, the first thing most adventurous owners will do will be to fit a set of All Terrains and tick that box for that last one per cent of ability.

Quite simply, driving the LM 500h is like piloting a limousine on stilts. Superbly comfortable, but with an elevated driving position that offers outstanding forward and side visibility, the LM 500h is an easy vehicle to drive for long periods of time.

A digital rear vision mirror means visibility behind is good and unobstructed by the privacy screen or the seats.

The drawbacks are down to the lack of space up front, with the driver’s chair limited in its ability to recline or slide back due to the bulkhead behind it.

And that's compounded by the lack of cabin storage for bags if the front passenger seat is taken.

As for the rear passengers there aren't many people movers offering this level of comfort, except perhaps the Zeekr 009.

Variable suspension that adjusts continuously keeps the vehicle composed and provides a high level of comfort for those in the rear. At the same time, the LM stays nice and flat through roundabouts while remaining civilised over speed bumps.

And then there's the acceleration, which, while not supercar-like is incredibly brisk for a van. The all-wheel drive system provides outstanding traction in wet and slippery conditions, too. 

Our family used the LM daily for everything from school runs to shopping trips and weekends away and not only was it fun to drive, our lucky rear passengers enjoyed sitting high and being able to see clearly out their windows along with the luxury of a giant movie screen.

The Lexus  LM 500h is yet to be tested by ANCAP so it doesn't have a safety assessment score. There is, however, a high level of safety tech onboard including AEB which can detect pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and other vehicles, emergency steering assist, lane keeping assistance, road sign recognition, rear cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors as well as six airbags.

For child seats there are ISOFIX points and top tether anchor mounts on the two rear seats. We have a forward facing child seat and found it easy to install.

A space-saver spare wheel is located under the boot floor.

The Cannon ute comes with GWM’s standard factory warranty of seven years/unlimited kilometres. That’s not quite industry-leading any longer, but it’s still a heck of a lot of peace of mind. You also get five years of roadside assistance that applies anywhere in Australia.

GWM also offers capped-price servicing for the first five years with major and minor services included. There’s no word on the cost of that yet, but GWM told CarsGuide that the price would not be dramatically different from the previous model’s capped-price scheduled maintenance. That suggests somewhere around the $360 per service mark.

There’s a first service due at six months or 5000km, and then regular services every 12 months or 10,000km after that.

Lexus covers the LM 500h with a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty. 

The Lexus Encore Platinum program is complimentary for LM owners for three years, providing 24-hour roadside assist, a loan vehicle or pick-up/return service at service time, 'On Demand' vehicle evaluation options, valet and airport parking benefits as well as exclusive offers and event opportunities.

Servicing is recommended annually or every 15,000 kilometres, and impressively, pricing is capped at $695 per service over five years.