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Chinese BYD electric van caught on camera in Australia

An electric delivery van made by Chinese company BYD has been spotted in a Sydney car park.


Mystery continues to surround Australian plans for Chinese electric-car specialists BYD and whether it will set up shop here.

However, for the second time in four months a brand-new BYD has been spotted in a Sydney CBD car park.

In October 2020, an eagle-eyed CarAdvice reader sent us photos of an electric SUV known as the BYD Tang.

Now, photos have emerged of a BYD T3 electric van, which is smaller than a Toyota Hiace but bigger than a Volkswagen Caddy.

Little is known about the BYD T3 other than the fact it is already quite old. It went on sale in 2014 as a passenger van – with a choice of petrol or electric power – before a windowless delivery van was unveiled the following year.

The size of the battery pack in the electric BYD van in these pictures is not known, nor is the driving range.

However, BYD is one of China’s biggest battery producers and has previously supplied Nokia and Motorola with mobile phone battery technology. At one point, BYD reportedly had more than half the world's mobile-phone battery market.

If the shape of the BYD van looks familiar, that’s because it is said to be based on a similar platform to the Nissan NV200.

BYD already has a small presence in Australia. There are five BYD E6 cars used as taxis in Sydney.

In May 2019, BYD announced it would bring its vehicles to Australia, however it is yet to officially set up shop here.

Meantime, amid an overall market slump Australians bought a record number of Chinese cars for the second year in a row in 2020.

A total of 30,696 cars made in China were reported as sold in Australia last year, an increase of 70.9 per cent compared to the prior year when the previous record of 17,957 were reported as sold.

Former British brand MG, which was bought by Chinese car giant SAIC in 2007, posted the biggest gains among its counterparts.

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Joshua Dowling

Joshua Dowling has been a motoring journalist for more than 20 years, spending most of that time working for The Sydney Morning Herald (as motoring editor and one of the early members of the Drive team) and News Corp Australia. He joined CarAdvice / Drive in 2018, and has been a World Car of the Year judge for more than 10 years.

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