BYD is not a car brand that many have heard of here in Australia but it happens to be the third-largest car company in the world.
More importantly, BYD produced and sold more EVs in April 2022 than ever before, despite the Covid-19 shutdowns in many parts of its home market of China.
We look at why this is significant for Australian EV uptake as BYD is set to launch their ground-up electric cars here in Australia later this year.
BYD bucks the declining EV sales trend in April 2022
In April 2021, BYD produced and sold 25,662 cars in its local market of China which has grown four times to 106,042 in April 2022. That’s over four times as many cars or 313% growth year on year.
This growth comes despite the lockdowns seen by Tesla where production did resume slowly in the second half of April causing Tesla’s factory in China to lose over 40,000 vehicles in production.
The lost production for Tesla will be made up as they plan to expand production to over 80,000 EVs a month from the Giga Shanghai plant as part of the new expansion plan that was revealed recently.
BYD’s distributed factories across China ensured that they did not see similar closures for their plants but that’s not to say that it won’t happen as Covid-19 may still force these in the near future.
For now though, BYD’s popularity and sales continue to exceed expectations for the third largest automaker by market capitalization in the world.
BYD Atto3 (Yuan Plus) produced in record numbers
From BYD’s line up, Australia is set to receive the BYD Atto3 which is part of their “Yuan” model range. The Atto3/Yuan models saw their highest production and sales month ever in April 2022 with over 15,168 cars being sold domestically in China.
That’s up from only 2,000 cars being sold in January this year showing the rapid rate of growth for this Australian bound model.
This growth trend is only set to increase as BYD looks to expand its production factories globally like the recently announced BYD’s new Thailand manufacturing plant that will be making right-hand drive cars in the future for markets in Asia and possibly Australia too.
This was after pictures were seen of the Australian variant being tested late last year.
BYD has also announced that they’ll completely stop making their petrol & PHEV vehicles globally as they transition to a fully ground up EV brand. This along with their in-house battery capabilities would make this transition quicker than many expect.
CEO of BYD’s Australian importer, Luke Todd, recently also announced that 90% of all BYD Atto3 orders are of the extended range model which shows that range is an important factor for many Australians looking to make the switch to EVs.
What it means for the first affordable ground up EV SUVs
A couple of weeks ago, images appeared of the new Atto3 in the right-hand drive configuration which indicated that the production for Australian delivered models was getting closer. This is great news for prospective EV buyers looking to get an affordable electric car.
One key difference as to why this car is quite significant for the Australian EV market is that it is based on a ground up EV platform.
Due to this, BYD’s EV range for Australia will be more efficient than other EVs found under $48,000 as they were designed to be pure EVs from the ground up rather than a conversion of an ICE car to an EV platform seen in other models in the market.
We will be watching its launch and uptake closely and if the supply can be met, it would be a bit of a game-changer for not only private buyers but also for larger fleet owners too.
As EV ownership interest increases in Australia, more affordable models are what’s needed so we don’t take the foot off the pedal to increase EV uptake. Affordable EVs like the BYD, MG and others are what is really needed to keep us on that journey to decarbonise Australian transport.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.