Chinese auto and battery giant BYD has taken things up a notch by slashing prices across multiple battery electric and plug in hybrid models in its home market of China.
The world’s biggest maker of new energy vehicles (NEV) has cut prices of between 10-30% across many models, according to reports from cnevpost.
For models such as the affordable BYD Seagull electric hatchback, prices now start at the equivalent of under $A12,000 for a limited time. That’s a price cut of almost $A3,000 from its regular starting price of around $A15,000.
The bigger Dolphin hatchback, which is also offered in Australia, now starts at $A16,700, a saving of 22%.
It’s worth noting that the Dolphin in Australia, which starts at $29,990 for the essentials range is a different specification to the model sold in China that is currently being discounted.
The Yuan Plus that’s sold as the Atto 3 in Australia has its China version now discounted to $A22,200, a reduction of 10%.
According to the latest report, the pricing is off the back of increasing dealer stock levels but with these cuts, they’re likely to run down fairly quickly. These price cuts are expected to last until the end of June.
On top of that, they’re likely to push other manufacturers to follow suit in a highly competitive market, which is also the world’s biggest car and EV market.
In Australia, BYD has multiple low priced models on the market and with competition heating up, other manufacturers are putting limited end of financial year offers on.
It’s unlikely that BYD will follow suit here but buyers can likely expect other incentives to sweeten EV deals in the coming months.
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.