BYD has begun deliveries of Australia’s most affordable electric vehicle, the all-electric Dolphin hatchback.
One of the first deliveries in the country happened on Friday at BYD’s experience centre in Brighton, Melbourne with the delivery of a Surf Blue with Urban Grey two-tone paint vehicle.
“It’s a really exciting moment to be delivering such a well-equipped, high-tech, five-star ANCAP rated car at such an affordable price,” BYD’s distributor EV Direct’s COO, Mark Harland said.
“We have hundreds of expected deliveries to our highly engaged customers in the coming week, helping power Australia’s EV revolution.”
The two-tone paint is available on the Premium variant. Although this variant comes with a starting price of $44,890, deliveries of the Dynamic variant – priced at $38,890 – have also begun.
This Premium variant’s power is bumped up by having a 150 kW motor which is paired with a larger 60.48 kWh battery pack offering a range of up to 427 km of WLTP range.
In comparison, the more affordable Dynamic variant is powered by a 70 kW motor which is paired with a 44.9 kWh battery pack.
These first deliveries come after a truck-load of BYD Dolphins were spotted in Melbourne earlier this month. The sighting was not far from the Brighton delivery centre where the car was delivered today to very happy customers.
BYD is a well-known brand in the EV community with over 10,000 vehicles making it to local roads since August last year. All of these have been the very popular electric SUV, the Atto 3 and now with the addition of the Dolphin electric hatchback.
This would be soon followed by the Seal electric sedan, which had its prices announced last week, setting a benchmark in the EV industry across the southern hemisphere.
With the ever-increasing appetite for EVs, now sitting at an all-time high and with affordable options like the Dolphin hatch making it onto the local roads, we are likely to see EV uptake take off in the coming months and years.
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.