Isuzu D-Max EV review: workaholic pickup goes electric

Surely not. An electric pickup?

Well spotted. The only people taking EV pickups seriously have been the Americans (but of course), with monsters like the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, GMC Sierra and Tesla Cybertruck all stalking the Land of the Free. Brits and Europeans just haven't had the space or the appetite... until now.

The D-Max EV comes from Isuzu – or the “pickup professional” as it likes to call itself – and while it might wear a familiar suit (based on the hard-wearing third generation that’s been serving on our shores since 2021), underneath it’s significantly different.

You don’t say.

In place of the old school 1.9-litre turbodiesel four pot you’ll find two motors, outputting 62bhp/85lb ft and 137bhp/172lb ft at the front and rear respectively, for a combined 200bhp/256lb ft and permanent all-wheel drive.

Hope you’re sitting down for this next bit… they’re paired with a 66.9kWh battery (64kWh usable) for a WLTP range of, er, 163 miles.

Good grief. One hundred and sixty-three?

Um, yes. Turns out, shoehorning a load of electric gubbins and a big (OK, not that big) battery into a platform that wasn’t built for it has its drawbacks. Who'da thunk it? And the range isn’t the only compromise, either, as we’ll get to.

Climb into the cabin and you’ll discover it’s largely identical to the diesel D-Max too. The analogue dials have been slightly tweaked to show power/charge, but it’s otherwise the same old hardwearing plastics, dated touchscreen, chunky drive selector and manual handbrake. Even the EV port release toggle still has a fuel pump on…

So who’s this thing for, then?

Businessey types, mainly. In the marketing bumf Isuzu has made a big song and dance about the fact that its core customers remain unchanged – builders, trades, farmers etc – with this EV targeted at those with a lower daily mileage. Well, duh.

The National Trust and National Grid have reportedly already trialled ’em, with the latter having tested a fleet “in operational conditions” across its Midlands, South Wales and South West regions. Thoughts and prayers to anyone who had a power cut then…

Hmm. Is it as capable as a diesel pickup?

Isuzu says this is the first electric pickup in the UK to offer a one-tonne-plus payload – crucial, because that's what allows businesses to reclaim the VAT – and a 3.5-tonne towing capacity, both of which are identical to the diesel.

That VAT write-off is important, because the Isuzu's biggest rival, the Hilux, which itself has also gone electric, has a payload of just 715kg – and therefore doesn’t qualify. Its towing capability, up to 1,600kg, is significantly less too. First blood to the D-Max.

A few more numbers for you to consider. The 210mm ground clearance is 20mm lower than the diesel; the 600mm wading depth is 200m less. But the 30.5-degree approach and 24.2-degree departure angles are identical. So it’ll manage farm work, in other words.

Understood. So what’s it like to drive? 

Press the start/stop button and the absence of a clattery diesel firing into life feels strange. What’s this… silence? Huh. Slotting it into Drive using the traditional gearshift and releasing the manual handbrake, as we touched on above, feels equally unfamiliar.

But then you start to feel the benefits of that electric powertrain. It accelerates much more smoothly, with the 0-62mph sprint seen off in 10.1 seconds – around three seconds quicker than the diesel – despite the increased kerbweight (2,345kg, compared to 2,070kg). Doesn’t deafen you in the process, either.

Paddles behind the steering wheel allow you to switch between four levels of regen, with the strongest effectively a one-pedal drive mode – though we found it irritating that it defaults to maximum every time you switch the thing on.

Does it still ride like a typical pickup?

Nose heavy, you mean? Er, yes, feeling very skittish particularly when travelling with an empty load bed. And while the absence of a noisy diesel is nice, it also means you notice other rattles and bangs much more. You end up crashing over imperfections that are invisible to the naked eye. Uh oh.

Isuzu has fitted de Dion semi-independent suspension at the rear in place of the traditional leaf springs, which it says improves handling and results in a more refined ride. We dread to think how spine-rattling leaf springs would be if this set-up is considered better...

Anyway, we’re also told it reduces cabin noise and vibration under full acceleration by up to 10 per cent. Every little helps.

Dare we ask what range you managed?

We achieved 2.5 mi/kWh when pootling about, which equates to 160 miles total – so pretty much bang on the WLTP figure. However, Isuzu’s spec sheet also states a WLTP city range of 224 miles – basically, the slower you go the further you'll get. We bet you'll see pigs fly before spotting one of these in, say, Westminster. But only in your wildest dreams are you getting near that number anywhere, particularly with a full load.

And that brings us to the other compromise we mentioned. See, if you’re forced to use a public charger then you’ll discover that the D-Max EV will only pull a maximum of 50kW, and 20-80 per cent takes one hour. Even for a pickup designed to stay close to home, that’s pants.

If you can charge in the yard or next to the barn, then fully flat to fully full takes 10 hours at 11kW AC. Of course, you’re never going to let it run fully flat, but either way it’s basically an overnight job. Fine for shifting animal feed, less fine if you're a 24/7 emergency vet.

A Hilux EV has it easily trumped here, thanks to 125kW DC charging and a smaller battery that still coughs up 159 miles WLTP. And a timely contextual reminder that on the other side of the Atlantic, a Sierra EV has the option of a 205kWh battery with 400-mile plus range... yeah, there are levels to this game.

Can’t be cheap to buy either, I presume…

Nope. The D-Max EV is available in Extended (the blue one above) and Double (silver) cab configuration, and starts from £59,995 and £60,995 (plus 20 per cent VAT) respectively. That’s in eDL40 trim (18in two-tone alloys, leather upholstery, 8in infotainment display, parking sensors and surround camera). 

Step up to posher eV-Cross trim (18in matte dark grey alloys, dark grey doorhandles and side steps, 9in infotainment display) – which only comes as a Double cab – and you’re looking at a bill of £62,495.

It does save some face courtesy of the government’s plug-in vehicle grant, meaning you can scribble £5k off the price immediately. And if you're a business, it's similar money to the electric Hilux even though you can't write the VAT off that. So it's really a question of how important the extra payload is to you.

Meanwhile, the base-level diesel is £28,755 and the top-spec model is £39,395 (before VAT). That's an awfully high premium to recover through cheaper fuelling costs.

So the D-Max EV isn't for Joe Public, then?

Nailed it. Honestly, you’d have to be mad to buy one of these privately. With a company hat on? Well, it certainly ticks the box if you're a business trying to meet net-zero targets, as Isuzu cites as a reason for this thing existing. 

What's more, as of April 2025, double cab pickups are classed as cars rather than light commercial vehicles, from a BiK perspective. And where that means the diesel D-Max attracts the top 37 per cent rate, the electric one benefits from just four per cent. But what price the reduced flexibility?

My head hurts.

Ours too. So let’s just focus on the facts for a second, shall we? Compared to the regular D-Max the electric one is better to drive, quieter, and the instant torque suits lugging big loads – for which it embarrasses the Hilux EV in terms of payload and towing capacity.

It’s just a shame, then, that it’s held back by that eye-watering price and its notably limited range/charging. This is a niche solution for a small market, and Isuzu can forget about broad appeal until it builds something fresh from scratch.

Which is another way of saying... don't show this to America. They'll laugh it all the way back to border control.