BYD has launched its sixth model in Brazil this year, gambling that its hybrid pickup truck can take on the likes of Toyota Motor and Ford Motor in the Chinese carmaker’s latest endeavour for world domination.
The company earlier this month made its 436-horsepower Shark hybrid pickup available for pre-order at 379,800 reais (S$87,032).
This marks its entrance into Brazil’s highly competitive medium-sized pickup truck segment, where customers have traditionally preferred trucks powered by diesel or petrol.
The Shark’s launch event last Saturday (Oct 19) in Goiania, the capital of Brazilian agribusiness, was BYD’s latest commercial offensive aimed at muscling its way to the top of the car-sales rankings in its biggest market outside China.
Expanding in Brazil is a key part of BYD’s strategy of building dominant positions in emerging markets, as the carmaker faces import tariffs in the US and European Union.
The company’s commercial director in Brazil, Henrique Antunes, said that BYD is looking to companies such as meat producer JBS and mining giant Vale to back the use of the hybrid pickup in extreme conditions.
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It aims to get about 70 per cent of Shark sales from agribusiness customers, the director noted.
“The potential market for pickup trucks in the agricultural sector is very large,” he added. “We conducted some studies that showed that even customers who are not in the agricultural sector often look to the agricultural sector to buy a pickup truck.”
Customers have reserved around 1,000 of the 1,500 pickups available since pre-orders began on Oct 3, he said. This marks a sharp increase over the company’s previous launch, the electric sport utility vehicle Yuan Pro, which sold 600 units in pre-sales.
People who reserved a Shark also secured a solar-charging kit, a 3.5 kilowatt-hour portable charger and free full insurance for one year.
Antunes expects that the Shark’s annual sales will be between 10,000 and 15,000 units, which would put it among the top-five mid-size pickup trucks in Brazil.
The current sales leaders in the segment are the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Chevrolet S10, indicated data from Brazil dealers association Fenabrave. Prices start at around 220,000 reais.
BYD sold 51,203 vehicles in Brazil during the first nine months of 2024, an increase of more than 700 per cent from the same period last year.
The company hopes the Shark will help it to move up from its current 10th place in the overall sales rankings to be among the top five by 2027, said Antunes. “BYD didn’t arrive in Brazil to be a supporting actor.”
That ambition echoes the carmaker’s global plans. BYD has gone from being a bit-part player in China’s crowded car market to cracking the top 10 car manufacturers in the world.
In late 2023, it briefly surpassed Tesla to become the biggest seller of pure electric vehicles globally.
Launching a hybrid pickup at a price premium to its rivals, and significantly more than the US$53,400 the same vehicle costs in Mexico, represents something of a gamble.
Still, automotive industry expert and partner at Bright Consulting Cassio Pagliarini said the opportunities outweigh the risks.
He believes that some of the agricultural customers are early adopters, eager for new technologies and looking to take the first step, even in a market that typically prefers diesel engines.
“It’s a traditionalist customer, but it’s something new, it’s the first hybrid pickup, with phenomenal autonomy, and it has a sustainable footprint,” Pagliarini added.
“Just like the premium vehicles from all these other brands, the word sustainability already wins people over.” Plus it still “has the ability to go through mud”.
BYD has gone all out to make an impression in Brazil in 2024, launching six new vehicles, including the Shark. The sales blitz has already shaken up the commercial strategies of its competitors and caused significant price reductions, both in purely electric and combustion models.
Brazil is also a key part of BYD’s ambitious plans to expand production globally, having recently opened or announced plans for assembly plants outside China in 10 countries on three continents.
The company has unveiled plans to invest 5.5 billion reais in Latin America’s largest economy to build a factory in Bahia, where a Ford plant once operated until 2021.
BYD’s senior vice-president in Brazil Alexandre Baldy said: “We expect to start vehicle assembly in December 2024 and full production in the first half of 2025 – not semi knock-down or complete knock-down – full production, including stamping of parts.” BLOOMBERG
