BYD electric ute prototype spotted in road trials

BYD is ramping up production for its global expansion in markets like Australia, and it is now revealed that the world’s biggest “new energy vehicle” maker is also rolling out an electric ute.

First reported on local media Mydrivers page and then published on cnevpost, the ute is seen to have a blue camouflage body. It’s the first sighting of a ute product from BYD. 

Given recent product launches like that of the BYD Seal sedan, we can expect to see this make it into production quite quickly.

The ute tray also matches the body of the vehicle as seen in the very popular Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux dual cab models here in Australia. 

At the delivery of the recent three millionth BYD NEV event, BYD’s chairman and president Wang Chuanfu mentioned the launch of two new brands from BYD in 2023. 

One will focus on BYD’s luxury vehicles while the details on the other brand were not fully disclosed. This ute will more than likely fall under the latter upcoming brand.

The ute will more than likely be offered in BYD’s DM plugin hybrid and pure electric powertrains given the company’s specialisation in blade battery technology which also powers the BYD Atto3 currently available to Australian buyers.

With production ramping up to over 217,000 NEV in October, BYD is on a trajectory to be launching multiple models in various markets globally before the end of the year.

As first reported by The Driven earlier in November, BYD is already the second-best-selling EV brand in Australia. 

With the recent awarding of the five-star ANCAP safety rating, the BYD Atto 3 has just become a whole lot more appealing to hundreds of fleet and business operators.

Given the ute’s history and popularity in the Australian market and with the first EV ute officially from LDV launching this week, it’s good to see prototypes from other EV brands. Australian EV ute market is set to see many new entrants in the coming years and BYD doesn’t seem too far from being one of the first.

Riz Akhtar

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.