Asian car company BYD officially entered the pickup truck market by tweeting a picture of a hidden truck to its X (formerly Twitter) fans. A company called BYD, whose name means “build your dreams,” said that their new electric pickup would be sold in “global markets,” but they haven’t said where they plan to sell it. The companies that made the F-150 Lightning, Cybertruck, R1T, and Silverado EV are likely to come up with new words to describe BYD, like Boy Yonder’s Danger, if the US is one of those markets.
That might be too dramatic. This pickup truck would not be “cheap” if sold in the United States, even though BYD is quickly becoming a real player in the global electric vehicle industry by offering a wide range of fairly priced yet high-quality cars. Import taxes make it almost impossible to buy a truck made in another country. Because of this, there is no reason to worry about a Lighting, R1T, Cybertruck, or Silverado EV-killing BYD truck unless the company plans to build North American factories that will only make products for the US (it is already doing this in Mexico, but not for vehicles going north of the Rio Grande).
Just one more time? It might come in something other than an all-electric version. Another BYD X story says that it has the company’s “DMO technology” for use off-road and a plug-in hybrid mode. In any case, the big players in the US truck market are paying close attention to this trend.
Then what is BYD?
The car, which doesn’t have a name yet, has only been seen in bright camouflage, but the metalwork and trim below it look like they are finished. It’s called a “medium-to-large truck,” and it looks about the same size as gas-powered midsize pickups like the Chevrolet Colorado, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tacoma, and the Rivian R1T sold in the US.
Truck markets in Southeast Asia, Australia, South America, and Europe all like this size of vehicle. It’s also becoming more popular in the US after years of decline and the end of cheap small trucks. In this case, the midsize-plus Rivian is the most similar size to an electric pickup. At the same time, Toyota is making an electric Tacoma truck and selling regular Tacomas as hybrids that don’t need to be plugged in. More information about the BYD truck will soon be made public. How do we know? BYD’s X has a post that says “coming soon.”
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