BYD’s quest to outsell Tesla and become the best-selling EV manufacturer means that no stone will remain unturned. For the Chinese automaker, this no doubt means it’s angling to create an EV truck. Earlier today, the brand shared with us a series of curated spy photos of its forthcoming EV pickup meant for markets that include more than just China.
Clad in a unique camouflage livery of blue and orange, there’s not quite much we can make out in the way of the truck’s stylistic details. Still, we can tell it’s not the full-sized behemoths that we’re used to in North America, nor does it push any proportional boundaries like the Tesla Cybertruck.
In all, it kind of resembles what we’ve seen from the Nissan Frontier. If we look closely, the rear window appears to kick up similarly. BYD’s truck even has a similar sport bar, akin to what a buyer would find on the Nissan Frontier Hardbody. The front camouflage is a bit restrictive, but its blocky light cluster and filled-in grille kind of resemble BYD’s efforts for one of its less-than-discussed EV SUV sister brands, Fangchengbao.
BYD’s EV Sales Drop For Q1 2024
BYD and Tesla have been neck and neck for the top-selling EV maker, but BYD’s Q1 results were only at 300,000 units. Some have said that this year’s Chinese New Year is part of the sales slump compared to Q4 2023. A new model could continue to boost the brand’s sales.
The details of the truck were scarce, only a paragraph translated into English accompanied the spy shots sent from BYD itself. This is BYD’s first EV pickup. It is a medium-to-large truck that is bigger than the Toyota Hilux, developed for the global market. BYD plans to launch the truck by the end of the year. I pressed a BYD representative for more information, but they declined to give me much more information than that.
Of course, the Chicken Tax and a rocky geopolitical relationship with China at the moment make BYD’s truck a non-starter for the U.S. However, this still is an important model for both China and the rest of the world. In China, laws that once saw all pickup trucks registered as commercial vehicles, and thus barred them from many cities, have been removed in parts of China. For better or worse, that means pickup trucks can be used as commuter cars akin to how they’re used in the rest of the world.
Most pertinently, BYD’s truck could end up in markets like Australia or Mexico. Those markets are a little friendlier to Chinese vehicles while favoring midsized to compact pickups, two things that this BYD truck has.
BYD’s truck might not be the design challenger to the Tesla Cybertruck, but it might not need to be. We should have more details on its truck before the end of 2024.
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