BYD announced in April that it would bring an additional 30,000 new energy vehicles, both fully electric and plug-in hybrids (collectively, New Energy Vehicles, NEVs), to Australia in the months to come to meet growing consumer interest in the transition from fossil cars.
Now, one of its own car carrier ships, carrying a big batch of NEVs to Australia as part of a special shipment, has docked at the port of Melbourne, unloading almost 5,000 additional BYD and Denza cars.
The ship, which left Shanghai late in May, will help fulfil orders from Australian drivers who are switching to EVs in response to fuel price hikes and additional cost-of-living pressures. It is a first for the EV industry in Australia.
After the ship docked over the weekend, the company started unloading hundreds of BYD and Denza vehicles, and we got to see the scale of the operation at an event at the Port of Melbourne.
The almost 200-metre-long and over 38-metre-wide ship had vehicles from both brands, with massive numbers of Atto 2, Sealion 7, and Denza vehicles, all found in the pre-inspection and port delivery area before being loaded onto car carrier trucks for customers across Victoria.
These vehicles have all been ordered this year, and thousands of first-time EV customers will get behind the wheel of one of these cars in the coming weeks, setting the stage for a huge June for EV sales.
BYD also took this opportunity to showcase some key statistics around the company’s local growth, announcing over 120,000 sales in under 4 years of the company’s vehicle sales in Australia.
BYD also hinted at growth into regional Australia as part of its dealership and service network expansion, helping more Australian drivers have local access to the company’s growing fleet of NEV models.
The currently docked ship, the BYD Zhengzhou, is one of eight purpose-built and BYD-owned roll-on roll-off (RORO) car-carrying vessels. After departing the Port of Melbourne, it will be en route to unload cars in Sydney and Brisbane.
This vessel was booked by the BYD management team for Australia as part of the special shipment, after the demand for EV sales surged due to rising fuel prices.
In 2026, BYD overtook Tesla as the most popular electric brand in Australia, and in April, it announced that it had delivered its 100,000th NEV in Australia, marking a major milestone.
With the first delivery of the massive increase of BYD vehicles into our market, it’s not hard to see the company easily surpassing its 2025 sales volume of just over 50,000 cars in the market for 2026. We could even see sales double as the year progresses and more drivers consider EVs for the first time.
See The Driven’s detailed EV sales data here: Australian electric vehicle sales by month in 2026; by model and by brand.
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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.