BYD Shark 6: Australian supply fast-tracked after order overload crashes website

The BYD Shark 6 has already shown how much of a predator it’ll become in Australia’s popular ute sales segment, even before first examples arrive in customer driveways in a couple of months.

Orders for the Shark 6 opened last night, when the ground-breaking plug-in hybrid (PHEV) dual-cab ute’s surprise introductory price of $57,900 before on-road costs was announced, flooding BYD’s website to the point that it crashed.

Approximately 800 orders had been placed by the time the website went down within minutes of orders opening at 7:30pm AEDT, and orders didn’t re-open until after 11:00pm.

Despite this lull of more than three hours, BYD said it had received 1400 orders for the BYD Shark 6 within the first 12 hours.

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This high demand for the BYD Shark 6 has led the company to investigate importing an additional 1000 cars for the first round of deliveries set to take place between December 2024 and January 2025.

BYD has previously said it would bring in 2000 examples of the ute in its first delivery batch.

For context, Isuzu has averaged approximately 2040 monthly deliveries of the D-Max 4×4 so far this year, while Ford and Toyota have averaged about 4950 Ranger 4×4 and 4050 HiLux 4×4 deliveries each month, respectively.

However, unlike almost all of its rivals, the BYD Shark 6 is coming to Australia in just one premium PHEV grade, the price of which undercuts the likes of the Ford Ranger XLT Bi-Turbo dual-cab ($63,640 before on-roads), and the Toyota HiLux SR5 with V-Active Technology ($63,260 before on-roads).

It’ll be the first plug-in hybrid ute on sale in Australia, beating the Ford Ranger PHEV and GWM Cannon Alpha Hi-4T to market.

Powering the Shark 6 is a turbocharged 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, plus two electric motors (one on each axle), and a 29.58kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack.

The powertrain produces total outputs of 321kW and 650Nm, sent to all four wheels.

BYD claims an electric-only driving range of 100km (NEDC), and the Shark 6 is claimed to sip as little as 2.0L/100km when running as a hybrid with the battery charged.

While it has more power and torque than almost all of its dual-cab rivals, and is quicker to 100km/h than even the Ford Ranger Raptor, the Shark 6 has a braked towing capacity of just 2500kg – down on the 3500kg figure for most Ranger and HiLux variants.

MORE: Everything BYD Shark 6