New BYD Shark 6 to bare its teeth at the UK pick-up market
The hi-tech hybrid pick-up truck was launched first in Mexico last year, but is now destined for our shores
The BYD Shark 6 hybrid pick-up truck is coming to the UK, Auto Express has learned, and it’ll be looking to take a big bite out of the best-selling, multi-award-winning Ford Ranger.
In an exclusive interview with Auto Express, BYD’s UK country manager, Bono Ge, revealed the Shark 6 will be coming here. The plug-in hybrid pick-up truck was introduced last year in Mexico, making it the company’s first product launched outside China.
In fact, the Shark 6 isn’t being sold in BYD’s home market, but it is now available in several markets including Australia, Brazil and South Africa. However the timing for its arrival to the UK has yet to be finalised.
According to Ge, that’s partly because BYD is still figuring out the sales and servicing network for the truck. “We still need to decide whether [the Shark 6] should be sitting on the passenger car side or join the LCV side of the network. Also how we support them.”
The BYD Shark 6 is almost certainly going to undercut its key rival, the newly launched Ford Ranger PHEV. This starts from just over £40,000 (excluding VAT), although you can save nearly £7,000 on one by ordering it through the Auto Express Buy A Car service.
How does the BYD Shark compare to the Ford Ranger?
The BYD Shark 6 is offered exclusively as a double-cab pick-up and with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, which the brand calls DMO (Dual Mode Off-Road). The truck measures 5,457mm long and 1,971mm wide, which means it’s slightly bigger than the latest Ford Ranger.
The maximum load length, maximum load capacity and towing capacity are better in the newly launched Ranger PHEV, though. For instance, it has a towing capacity of 3,500kg, which trumps the Shark’s 2,500kg. Plus the Ford can haul up to 1,000kg in its bed, compared with 790kg in the BYD.
However the plug-in hybrid set-up in the BYD Shark 6 offers an impressive pure-electric driving range of up to 62 miles, thanks to its sizeable 29.58kWh battery, plus a combined power output of 435bhp. The Ranger PHEV meanwhile delivers 275bhp and just 27 miles of EV range.
The Shark’s zero-emissions driving abilities, combined with CO2 emissions of 46g/km, should make it 6 an appealing left-field choice for company car drivers. Especially because double-cab pick-up trucks are no longer classified as commercial vehicles, so instead of paying a flat tax rate of little as £792 per year, these types of trucks are now classed as private vehicles.
As a result, their CO2 emissions dictate which Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) band they land in. That’s why the traditional diesel-powered Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok attract the maximum 37 per cent company car tax rate, while the Ranger PHEV falls into the 19 per cent band. The more efficient BYD Shark 6 could fall into an even lower band.
Convincing Ford Ranger customers to try something new
BYD’s UK sales and marketing manager Steve Beattie told Auto Express earlier this year that he was keen to get the Shark 6 onto UK shores. That’s in part because of the recent changes to how pick-up trucks are taxed, plus he’s confident it will steal sales away from the Ford Ranger.
“[The pick-up truck] market is dominated by the Ranger, and Ford does an incredible job with that. What's interesting is the market has just changed for that vehicle because it was effectively a company car tax break, but [trucks] are now being classed as cars
“So, ultimately, all of those diesel [pick-up truck drivers] now have to move to something that is either plug-in hybrid or electric, and this being plug-in hybrid I think is going to fit really well.
“It’s also just something different. We've seen that with Tesla Model 3 customers and Model Y customers, they say ‘I've had this for a while, I want to change into something different’ and that gives us an opportunity. Now for those Ranger customers, we’ll have an alternative here.”
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