BYD Shark Set To Disrupt Global Pickup Truck Market

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BYD is now selling vehicles in more than 95 countries around the world and every one of them comes with a plug. GM? Ford? Chrysler? Outside of Canada and Mexico, (and a diminishing amount in China), they have turned their noses up at foreign markets. People love to talk about “game changing” technology and disrupting traditional markets, but the truth is, the US has largely insulated itself from the global auto market. It’s like The Big Three are trying to emulate Harold Lloyd as he struggles to hold back the hands of time.

Pickup trucks are hugely popular in many countries because of their ability to haul stuff in the load bed without getting the passenger compartment dirty. In Europe, it is not unusual to see three-wheeled versions based on motor scooter chassis. In Australia, they are called utes — short for utility vehicle — and almost all of them have fold-down sides that make accessing the load bed simple and convenient. In the US, they are as large as possible to help men get over their sense of emasculation. Some even have tiny step ladders built in to help people access the load bed because it is so far off the ground.

Obergruppenführer Musk decided one day to disrupt the pickup truck market. He told his engineers what he wanted and they dutifully came up with the Cybertruck, a giant ark with a puny load bed but a front that looks like the prow of a roll-on, roll-off ferry boat when you see it coming toward you. Just the thing for fearful people who want to know they could squash every other vehicle like a bug if Mad Max movies happen to be precursors of reality — which seems increasingly likely these days.

BYD Shark Is The Disrupter In Chief

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But the vehicle that is really disrupting the pickup truck market globally is the BYD Shark, a plug-in hybrid that takes its design cues straight from Detroit. Some would say it is the electrified pickup truck Chevrolet should have introduced years ago using a version of the Voltec powertrain developed for the Chevy Volt that has been languishing on the shelf for the past 8 years.

According to MSNBC, without its exterior badges, the BYD Shark could pass for an American made product, perhaps a smaller version of the iconic Ford F-150. That is no accident. Terry Woychowski is president of automotive at Caresoft Global. Previously he was a chief engineer of full size trucks at General Motors. He told MSNBC recently the overall build quality of the Shark is impressive, but there are quirky elements of the vehicle as well as some “shared” best practices with current pickups by Ford and GM.

Caresoft is an engineering benchmarking and consulting firm similar to the company founded by Sandy Munro. It has torn down and examined roughly 40 EVs built in China. The Michigan based company digitally and physically analyzes every part of a vehicle, from bolts and latches to seats, motors, and battery casings. It then determines how its clients — mainly automakers and suppliers — can improve efficiencies and cut costs in their products.

The familiar practices and elements of the BYD Shark include the similarity of the overall exterior design to the F-150, including its lighting and a pullout tailgate step. The front seat and interior design resembles the Toyota Tundra, while certain production aspects of the vehicle are derived from other trucks. The frame, for instance, is dipped in wax, a process designed to reduce corrosion that GM has been using for decades. “You can tell where they benchmarked and whom. Ford back here, GM under there, and Toyota over there,” he said.

That’s not to say the vehicle isn’t unique. While Caresoft still needs to tear down the Shark to understand its build processes and parts better, the vehicle’s interior design and, most notably, its hybrid powertrain are unlike anything currently offered in the US. Automakers such as Ford and Toyota that rely heavily on sales of smaller pickup trucks globally have taken notice of the BYD Shark. “It’s a great product. It’s sold well. They’re trying to sell in high volume in Mexico, but it’s also being localized in Thailand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said when asked about the BYD Shark earlier this month. “If we want to be a global player in pickups, like we are now, we have to compete.”

When asked about Chinese competitors earlier this month, Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda said his company “needs to be prepared to respond to the global needs of the global markets,” regardless of the competition. “We try to focus on the needs of each individual market and try to be best in town. So that will be the strategy that we have,” Toyoda said during a media roundtable at the CES tech conference. It’s hard to imagine a more mealy mouthed non-statement than that.

The BYD Shark Has No Competitors

So far, Ford has made noises about adding hybrid versions of its current models, not plug-in hybrids. GM is the one talking about plug-in hybrids, but they are years away from production. Ram recently cancelled plans for its long-range battery electric pickup truck but is close to starting production of a plug-in hybrid truck called the Ramcharger.

BYD exported more than 10,000 BYD Shark vehicles in 2024, a number that is expected to increase as the company prepares to expand production. It has grown its share of vehicle exports from China from 2 percent, or less than 56,000 units, in 2022 to 8 percent, or 350,500 units, in 2024 according to BofA Securities. Exporting has continued to assist BYD in increasing its sales globally to approximately 4.3 million vehicles in 2024, up from roughly 3 million a year earlier. Goldman Sachs expects that growth to continue this year to roughly 5.5 million units. “BYD is starting to tap into the overseas market with compelling products, which we expect could become a second growth driver for the company, contributing 31 percent of incremental vehicle sales volume,” Goldman Sachs analyst Tina Hou said in an investor note recently.

The BYD Shark is expected to help the company grow its sales and profits. It is a midsize pickup truck with a plug-in hybrid powertrain that combines electric vehicle components such as a battery and electric motors with a 1.5 liter internal combustion engine. It can operate as an all electric vehicle or have the engine power its batteries and electric motors. It has a total range of more than 500 miles, according to BYD. The Shark starts at about 899,980 pesos ($44,000) in Mexico. While that is quite a bit more than the other models BYD sells in Mexico, it is still much cheaper than many hybrid or all-electric trucks available in the US and in line with pricing of mid-level models of the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks sold in Mexico.

Woychowski said his clients have taken particular interest in Chinese automakers, including BYD, because of their growth and quickness in developing new products and making improvements to existing models. “It’s a credible truck,” he said about the Shark. “There’s some things they did very well. There’s some things that they can do to clean it up, but that’s not a hard job to do.”

A Shark In US Waters?

The concern, of course, is what would happen if the BYD Shark was available in the US. BYD is contemplating a factory in Mexico, which could potentially allow it to export the truck to the US without paying the 100 percent tariff imposed by the Biden administration. That may be part of the reason why, on his way out the door, Biden also banned imports of any cars that use computer control systems sourced from Chinese suppliers. The justification used was that those systems might surreptitiously surveil US defense installations and report that information back to the CCP and PLA. In reality, it seems more likely it was a way to block imports of Chinese cars made in Mexico without having to put discriminatory tariffs on some Mexican goods but not others.

In any event, US manufacturers have been heavily insulated from competition from China, which may be good in the short term for American workers but is a recipe for collapse of the entire US auto industry in the longer term. “Be careful what you wish for,” my old Irish grandmother liked to say. “You just might get it.”