The upcoming pick-up truck by Chinese manufacturer BYD has been sighted on test once again, and this time it has been sighted without its camouflage foil by Korean site Autospy, offering the clearest view so far of the Chinese manufacturer’s double-cab pick-up truck.
This latest sighting of the BYD pick-up truck also partly reveals its interior, which although continues to wear some covering, can be seen to feature a pair of display screens – one for driver instrumentation, and the other for infotainment which, like on other BYD model’s already in production, can be rotated to work in either portrait or landscape orientation.
While the spy images from Autospy are of a left-hand-drive vehicle, presumably from its native China, Car Expert has been told by the brand’s local distributor in the country that there are development units already in Australia which are being tested.
“There will be design elements that have been made [over a period of] six to nine months, so there already are elements suitable for Australia, re-engineered into the vehicle to make it more suitable for Australian conditions,” Australian BYD distributor EVDirect CEO, Luke Todd told Car Expert.
Some of the local stylings and attributes that people want to see in a ute or pickup, have already been implemented by the Australian engineers in partnership with BYD engineers in China,” Todd continued.
In terms of powertrain, the upcoming BYD pick-up truck will first be offered with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, as well as a fully electric powertrain that will debut at a later date, according to the Australian website. The PHEV setup will consist of a 1.5 litre turbocharged engine mated with two electric motors to yield a total system output of 365 kW, or 496 PS.
The full EV powertrain version will join the pick-up truck’s line-up at a later date, Todd told Car Expert, as as bringing an EV pick-up such as this to market right now would see the model priced above AUD$100,000 (RM311,416), Todd said.
“We want vehicles that Australians can afford, we don’t want to be pushing over $100,000, and the reality is that a full EV ute at the moment would be over that because of the battery size required to power the vehicle,” he told the website.
In terms of a similar model from Chinese brands, the Radar RD6 from the Geely group is the closest rival to the upcoming BYD pick-up truck. Like the latter, the Radar RD6 takes the form of a dual-cab pick-up truck, and the RD6 is similar to the Toyota Hilux in size, at 5,260 mm long, 1,900 mm wide and 1,830 mm tall with a wheelbase of 3,120 mm.
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