BYD, one of the world’s fastest-growing automakers, has made a spectacular entry into the market for utes in Australia and laid down an immediate challenge to traditional best-sellers like the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger.
The company officially launched the Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute on Tuesday evening at an event at Mt Gipps station near the iconic mining town of Broken Hill – despite the lingering threat of ongoing blackouts – and announced a price which is well below what many expected – $57,900 before on-roads.
This is much lower than what many expected and the BYD local website went down for nearly 2 hours. That outage left some potential customers a bit disappointed but the website did come back online by 10 pm on the evening.
The Shark includes a 29.58 kWh Blade battery that BYD says provides 100 kilometres of pure electric range, and a total driving range of 800 kilometres offering drivers outstanding fuel efficiency.
“The Australian car industry has been changed forever,” said Luke Todd, the head of BYD’s local distributor EVDirect. “Australians love utes, and they love their SUVs. What we’ve delivered is a rugged Aussie-ready ute, with the comfort of an SUV, that drives like a sports car on-road.”
On top of the pricing, official accessories and care packages with the shark have also been revealed. These include:
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Bars
- Roof Racks
- Cargo Covers
- Weather Protection
- Tint
- Mats
- Seat Covers
- Car Care
These accessories are very timely and will allow many buyers to preconfigure their vehicles to have them fitted on before picking it up.
On the launch night, BYD also offered $500 worth of complimentary accessories for the first 2000 orders.
The online configurator shows this ute currently being available in 3 colours. This includes the Great White, Tidal Black and Deep Sea Blue. The latter two are a $700 option over the Great White.
The Shark 6 ute has been highly anticipated. It has been spotted testing on local roads for around 6 months, including towing caravans and off-road activities.
This ute has been showcased as an “electric-first” vehicle as it is equipped with BYD’s dual-mode off-road (DM-O) technology. This tech is part of BYD’s PHEV models that are geared towards off-roading.
With the DM-O tech underneath, this ute will be offering one of the longest electric-only ranges in its class thanks to a 29.58 kWh BYD blade battery that can deliver an EV-only range of up to 100 km.
Vehicle to load (V2L) is also available, making it possible to charge other equipment when on a work site, camping or just powering a laptop.
The Shark 6 has two electric motors, one on each front and rear axles. The front motor will deliver 170 kW and 310 Nm while the rear motor can output up to 150 kW and 340 Nm.
The same blade battery pack in the ute can also be charged by the ute’s 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine.
With this drivetrain, the Shark 6 is equipped with 2.5 tonnes of brake towing capacity.
See our review of the Shark 6 here.
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.