BYD introduces plug-in hybrid pickup in Mexico and says no plans for Canada

BYD Co., the leader in electric vehicles in China, introduced its first truck in Mexico, next door to the world’s largest pickup market.

BYD unveiled the Shark plug-in hybrid truck May 14 at an event in Mexico City. While BYD has said previously the Shark will be distributed globally, the automaker doesn’t have any plans to sell in the U.S. — the biggest single market for pickups — at the moment.

Officials later told Automotive News Canada it has no plans to offer the vehicle for sale in Canada either.

Other details such as the Shark’s price, performance specifications and production location also have yet to be revealed.  
 

Separately, BYD expects to choose a site to build a plant in Mexico, where it will put out up to 150,000 cars a year, by the end of 2024, the company's Americas head said on May 14.

The plant will be built in central Mexico, Americas head Stella Li told Reuters in an interview. It should take two to three years to open, she added.

The Shark is only available in the Latin American nation, BYD executives said, and is the first time the world's largest electric-vehicle maker has launched a new product outside its home country.

BYD chose Mexico because of the rapid growth in demand for pickup trucks in the country, Li said.

The model is meant to tackle common downsides to pickups, such as high fuel consumption as well as poor handling and control, Li added.

The launch of the Shark pickup comes as Chinese auto brands’ market share has surged in Mexico and at a time when U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration quadruples tariffs on imports of EVs made in China. Chinese brands account for about 87 per cent of EV sales in South America and 20 per cent in Mexico, according to BloombergNEF.

While BYD passenger vehicles aren’t currently available in the U.S., the automaker has been pushing into markets across Asia, including Australia, and Latin America, where pickups are popular. Truck sales in those regions are dominated by models such as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Hilux and Ford Motor Co.’s Ranger, which also offer hybrid versions in some markets.

It’s unusual for a Chinese brand to unveil a new vehicle outside of its home market, and the move shows Mexico’s growing importance to BYD and other automakers based in China, where growth has slowed.

The Shenzhen-based EV giant makes a wide range of mass market models, including an entry level EV for less than $10,000 (all figures in USD) and an all-electric supercar for upwards of 1.68 million yuan ($232,000). BYD dominates China’s EV market and it briefly became the world’s biggest seller of EVs, overtaking Tesla Inc., in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Bloomberg, Reuters and Automotive News Canada contributed to this report.