Electric ute shock! The BYD Shark 6 really is as good as everyone says – in fact, it’s better | Opinion

Being avowedly and even professionally cynical can be exhausting work, but it’s satisfying, too, because you’re so often proven to be correct. Sticking to a cynic’s position can eventually bite you, however, if, say, you declare that all Chinese cars leave you as cold as a morgue slab, then you drive one – like the BYD Shark 6 – that’s actually annoyingly good.

To be fair, it’s possible that all BYDs are great – although I do think they should spell out the name in full at all times, Kentucky Fried Chicken is so much tastier than KFC and Build Your Dreams is such a bold promise for a car company – but I’d somehow never driven any of them before. 

(Checks notes, actually I did drive a Sealion 6 at Wheels COTY testing last year, but it obviously didn’t stick in my mind.)

Clearly, I climbed up into the great big white Shark with low hopes, banging both my head and shins and swearing profusely, but I can honestly say it took me less than three minutes to be genuinely shocked by how good this thing is to drive. 

It steers like a proper car, it’s pleasantly silent most of the time thanks to its seamless plug-in hybrid technology – unlike every other ute in history – it doesn’t feel overly cheap or horribly nasty inside, it’s spacious in the rear and comfortable in the front, and, for a ute, it doesn’t even ride too badly.

Being a cynic, I shook my head and assured myself that its flaws would surely leap out at me over the next week, and tried to raise some fury over the fact that the cable to charge it seemed to be “stored” or perhaps simply left, in the rear footwell. Outrage! No stars!

The first thing one encounters when approaching a vehicle as large as this – at 5.46m long, 1.97m wide and 1.92m tall – is the design, and there is something familiarly Chinese about this. Many years ago, I attended a motor show in Shanghai where I noticed that pretty much every locally built car looked suspiciously like vehicles I’d seen at home. The Photocopier Approach to design seemed to be very popular, and I’d have to say that, to me, there’s a large amount of Ford Ranger in the Shark 6’s “styling” if that’s even a word you can apply to big pick-up trucks.

Let’s call it hulkingly handsome, or manly. Daunting yet daring, perhaps. As utes go – and I’m pretty cynical about the benefits of any of them, unless you’re an actual tradie and you genuinely need one – it’s not bad to look at.

It also got a lot of attention from neighbours and strangers, an alarming number of whom seemed both highly excited and hugely knowledgable about both Shark 6 and BYD in general. Although a few punters did assume it was a fully electric ute, because that’s clearly what the BYD brand has come to mean.

But it is that PHEV technology that really does make the Shark a bit special. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect to get the full, thrusting EV performance I’ve become used to from other electric cars in something this big. But in either EV or HEV mode I found it torque-tastic and hugely convincing, and only in the rain did I experience some wheelspin when driving like a hoon, or a dickhead.

Having not one but two electric motors, one for each axle, and a large 30kWh battery, attached to the 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine, is the key to its thrusty nature. It all adds up to 321kW and 650Nm, making this the most powerful vehicle in its segment. Not only does it boast more grunt than the Ford Ranger Raptor that people seem to love so much, with its 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V6, but it’s faster, too, with a very believable claim of 5.7 seconds for the 0 to 100km/h haul.

Impressive,  but then add in the claimed fuel efficiency number of an incredible-sounding 2 litres per 100km. This can be achieved, in the theoretical world at least, because the Shark 6 offers a whopping 100km of EV-only range, which genuinely got me through our whole week together (the engine will kick in above 70km/h, if required, but I never heard it doing so).

Incredibly, as that week went past, I just didn’t find anything to really hate. The steering, which I could adjust between Sporty and Sleepy, was genuinely very good. Better than any ute I can remember, quite honestly, the EV grunt made it quite fun to drive, and never lacking in power, and while I just generally dislike driving something this big, I didn’t dread it, and nor did I often avoid it and choose a smaller vehicle.

Apparently there are issues with towing, with a braked capacity of just 2.5 tonnes, which I’m told is not enough, and the tray, while big enough for a full-sized palette (someone please let me know how many colours that is?), is smaller than some and the capacity is just 790kg, so owners can’t say “one-tonner, mate”, which does sound fun.

Admittedly, the largest thing I had in the tray was an empty Yakult bottle that some filthy hippy must have thrown in as they sashayed past, but it certainly looked capacious to me.

And then we come to the price, which is probably the biggest reason this thing is already selling like wildfire at an arsonist’s conference. I had an Uber driver who yelped in joy when I told him it could be had for  just $57,900, before on-road costs, which ismore expensive than some rival Chinese utes, which I’m sure are terrible, but is appreciably more affordable than the most popular 4×4 versions of the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger, which can’t get near it on fuel economy or driving enjoyment.

This BYD Shark 6, then, is something special. It’s a ute I would actually suggest that people buy.