New BYD Australia boss promises more models and better customer service: “We want to be an established leader in every respect.”
The new leader of the surging BYD brand in Australia has confirmed its sales and expansion goals remain hugely ambitious, but has played down any prospects of them being publicly broadcast in the way his predecessors did.
Local industry veteran Stephen Collins, who was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the new factory-owned BYD Australia vehicle distributor in June, says sales results will be the outcome of the business doing its job right.
BYD Australia officially took over the distributorship from independent outfit EVDirect one week ago on Monday July 21.
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EVDirect founder Luke Todd was especially prone to making big predictions including an eventual aim to topple Toyota as Australia’s number one brand.
EVDirect’s CEO David Smitherman also laid out an ambitious sales plans for the brand that scheduled it for 25,000 sales in 2024, 50,000 sales in 2025 and 100,000 sales in 2026.
But Collins, who served two terms at Honda Australia including as CEO and Executive Director either side of a stint at Nissan Australia, is talking more generally, if still pretty ambitiously
“In five or less years, we want to be an established leader in every respect,” Collins told EV Central.
“We’ve got to be good at everything. It’s not good enough to say good product and good value and some other stuff that’s good.
“You’ve got to be good at everything. So I think for us it’s making sure that we’re good front-end, back-end, retention, brand values, brand reputation, trust, all the key things that make good brands great.”
There’s no doubt Collins is under instruction from the BYD factory to continue to grow sales in Australia, although he was not prepared to put specific numbers on what that represents.
“In 2022 … when the business started under the [EVDirect] distributorship, we were ranked 37 in the sales ranking. In 2023, it was 22. In 2024, it was 16,” he said.
“I think by the end of this year, we’ll be well and truly in the top 10. We want to continue on a similar trajectory.”
Under the structure of the factory owned distributor, Collins runs the BYD vehicle business in Australia. He reports upward to BYD Australia’s overall boss, Wing You.
As previously reported the BYD’s luxury brand Denza will soon launch in Australia and that will also have its own local brand chief who will report to Wing You.
Collins inherits a BYD business rocketing along with sales up 144 per cent year-on-year primarily driven by the Sealion 6 PHEV SUV, the Shark 6 PHEV dual cab ute and the Sealion 7 EV.
BYD was number five on the sales charts in June, is eighth for the year and expects to finish the year seventh with Smitherman’s 50,000 forecasts sales well within grasp.
Collins insists the factory take-over of the BYD business in Australia will help accelerate its popularity further and will be good news for customers.
“It enables us to streamline stuff,” he said. “So, for example, product, I think we can go straight through channels into the global organisation, and the speed with which product decisions and development happens here is pretty unique.
“The other reason is around supply, stock, and BYD is very vertically integrated in terms of supply chain and very flexible in terms of supply chain.
“That’s been one of the things I think that’s been a challenge. There’s been some long wait times on particular vehicles.
“We’re aiming to reduce the wait times on certain really popular models.
“That’s probably the primary one that people hopefully will see that flows through the system in the short term.”
Product expansion will continue, Collins confirmed, with four new models due for launch by early 2026. Two of them – the BYD Atto 2 compact electric SUV and BYD Sealion 8 three-row PHEV SUV (pictured top) – have already been named.
Collins also revealed the BYD Australian dealer network would grow from the current mainly metropolitan network into regional centres and grow to at least 120 outlets.
But he also emphasised BYD Australia was conscious of the challenges and potential pitfalls of lightning fast expansion.
“There’s no doubt that with fast expansion of sales it puts pressure on the back end,” he said. “It puts pressure on delivery of cars, it puts pressure on servicing and all of the components that ultimately lead to a good customer experience and people coming back.
“So we are equally focused on not just opening up new dealerships to sell cars and sell new cars, but making sure that we’re investing locally in parts warehousing and logistics and all of the components that have to work together to be a strong, long-term, sustainable, successful brand.
“This is not a flash in the pan.”
