Last month, the BYD Dolphin hatchback EV was first spotted by a Sydney EV enthusiast driving around the streets of western Sydney.
Now what appears to be the same Dolphin has been spotted doing rounds of the Sydney CBD. This time, The Driven was sent these photos by another of its readers, Chris Wood, who spotted the BYD Dolphin being tested on Market Street in the heart of Sydney.
The orange mirrors and stripes along the length of the hatch give a pretty good indication that it’s BYD’s ground-up EV hatchback, the Dolphin.
From the side, the flush door handles and right-hand drive configuration can also be seen which was not the case for the example seen in BYD’s Sydney experience centre early in the year.
The Pearl white and dark tinted glass roof also gives the EV a unique look not found in many hatchbacks currently available on the EV market. Like the Tesla models, the glass roof gives EVs a more spacious feel for the passengers.
If the testing goes well and it does launch in the Australian market as it’s expected to do so, it would likely be one of the best-selling EVs on the market.
There is also competition aiming to get here in the first half of 2023 in the form of the MG 4 EV hatchback which was also spotted in Sydney last week. That was just after the hatchback received a five-star safety rating in Europe.
Both the BYD Dolphin and the MG 4 are based on a ground-up EV platform. The MG 4 only slightly edges out the BYD Dolphin when it comes to length. It comes in 162 mm longer than the 4,125 mm Dolphin.
The BYD hatchback is powered by BYD’s blade batteries. The extended range model is able to do over 300 km of WLTP range from a 44.93 kWh battery pack. That would be an ideal range for many zero-emission city trips.
Either way, what’s significant about both of these EVs is that they are likely to come in around $40,000 into the Australian market.
Combined with state and federal EV incentives, the BYD Dolphin and the MG 4 could be the EVs Australia needs to help further accelerate EV adoption in 2023 and beyond.
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.