The BYD Shark 6 has already taken a big bite out of the ute market, but the Chinese brand has big plans to expand in 2026 – including a potential ‘Great White’ Shark to hunt down the Ford Ranger Raptor.
The Shark 6 is already the fourth most popular 4×4 dual-cab ute in the market and has maintained steady sales amid the changeover from independent distributor, EV Direct, to a factory-backed operation.
Former Honda Australia boss Stephen Collins joined BYD Australia in June as Chief Operating Officer and has revealed there are big plans for the ute in order to keep its sales strong.
“We’re looking at other opportunities with Shark,” Collins told Torquecafe. “None of which I can confirm, but we’re sort of looking at, it’s obvious in the ute market that there’s opportunities at the higher end.
“There’s opportunities at a lower end, probably more on a fleet basis. So look, we are confident that Shark will continue to be what is now, a major player in that segment.”
Collins wouldn’t be drawn on whether BYD would be a direct rival to the Ranger Raptor, but given it already packs 321kW of power and 650Nm of torque from its plug-in hybrid powertrain, there is clear potential.
What Collins did make clear is that BYD will look to include new variants at both the higher and lower ends of the market to try and expand its fleet market.
“ We’re looking at both,” he said. “We’re looking at everything. So it’s obvious with the major players in that segment that they have performance models, they have high-spec models. They have models similar to, to our current and then they have lower grade models, more for fleet and business buyers.
“So we’re just looking at every one of those opportunities to see whether we can bring something that’s new and fresh. So we haven’t committed to anything yet, but the major thing for me is that Shark has been and is competitive right now, but we need to keep it that way.”
Collins is confident that fleet sales are a big opportunity for growth for the Shark 6 in 2026 and beyond.
“ You’d know 45 per cent of the total market is fleet, right, of some description. Up until recently, fleet was five per cent of our mix,” he admitted.
“So it was very, very small. So we’ve recently invested in a fleet department, a loan program and, and we’re getting serious about entering and putting ourselves in front of fleets.
“We think that there’s just a huge opportunity there that is untapped. So yeah, I think our aspirations are still strong, but there’s still a lot of untapped opportunities, markets, we still think we can keep growing.”
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