The Important Details
What’s to Love?
Excellent passenger space, smooth and almost silent acceleration, a roomy usable rear tray and a large set of disc brakes all round. But the big win for this vehicle is the abundance of vehicle to load outlets, 1 x 230v for the rear passengers, 3 x 230v in the rear tray plus V2L from the charging port, anyone camping or using this vehicle on a worksite can have no complaints.
Why is the Shark 6 Becoming Popular in Australia?
For the past 6 years many Aussies have been keen to get hold of a good size electric ute/4×4 that can offer reasonable driving range for weekends away, good ground clearance, some sharp acceleration, the ability to power 230v tools or camping equipment from the vehicle and the ability to take advantage of low cost per km home electricity.
Unfortunately, the LDV e60 is too many dollars for nowhere near enough range, the Ford Lightning is very impressive but the near $200k on-road cost in Australia is just not cost effective for 400kms per full charge.
As for the much-awaited Tesla Cybertruck, its marketing parade throughout Australia over the past 9 months has only sharpened appetites but not put any food on the table.
Tesla has missed a massive opportunity; I’ve been heavily involved in the Tesla community for the past 10 years and recognise a lot Tesla fanboys on the local Shark 6 social media groups.
BYD Shark 6 is not the next best option, it’s the only option until the GWM Cannon hybrid gets into customers hands. Until then BYDs Australian distributor EV Direct are gonna need a bigger boat (roll-on, roll off – RoRo ship).
What About Burning All that Filthy Petrol?
Good point, there’s tens of thousands of fossil fuel burning utes spewing out exhaust fumes in every Australian capital city, at least a plug-in hybrid Ute with 80kms EV range can go for weeks on end around the city and suburbs powered solely by home electricity and not add to the problem.
Plus, at 9 litres per 100kms on long country trips the carbon created is less than another form of long-distance transport, commercial aircraft. A return flight from London to Sydney creates a similar carbon output per passenger as a petrol car driving 27,000kms at 9 litres per 100kms.
So, There’s Gotta be a Catch?
There sure is, BYD’s Australian distributor EV Direct have spent big on marketing but appear to have overlooked allocating enough money for basic infrastructure to get vehicles off the boat and into customers’ hands in a reasonable time.
The delivery experience is excruciatingly painful, it’s not a one-off, the Shark 6 forums are full of very frustrated expectant owners who are forced to deal with a multitude of communication failures, or a lack of communication completely.
Many who ordered on opening night in early November still don’t have a vehicle despite others who ordered in early February already having vehicles in their possession, that’s a kick in the guts for those that backed this product from day one.
The excuse that there’s high demand for the Shark is not acceptable, blind Freddie could see that would be the case after the high gloss marketing campaign.
The issue is a lack of resources, lack of parking area and a communication chain that shuts off contact because staff are too busy searching through overcrowded car parks looking for customer vehicles. Expectant owners shouldn’t have to visit the showroom to get answers when emails and phone calls don’t get returned.
If EV Direct want to achieve the lofty goals the top brass in Australia continually brags about, they need to provide better facilities and streamline the delivery process rapidly, the current “chaos” method is clearly not working.
Maybe YGNABB also means EV Direct, You’re Gonna Need A Better Boss.