A BYD car-carrier has made its first voyage from China to Australia, as the electric vehicle (EV) maker appears to be challenging Japan’s Toyota’s ranking as the best-selling car brand in the country.
The 2025-built 7,000-ceu BYD Zhengzhou arrived in Melbourne on Sunday, carrying 5,000 hybrid and pure EVs.
Following the outbreak of the US-Israel conflict against Iran in February, fuel prices rocketed in Australia, causing car owners to complain. It appears BYD took the opportunity to market its EVs there.
BYD Australia COO Stephen Collins said having its own fleet enabled BYD to respond quickly to customers’ needs, adding that its vertically integrated business model “facilitated expanding production on demand”.
Several Chinese carmakers created their own car-carrier fleets to move their vehicles since demand rebounded following Covid, amid under-investment in the vessels by traditional tonnage providers.
BYD now has seven, enabling the company to deliver vehicles to any destination worldwide at any time. Between May and June, BYD expects to ship 30,000 cars to Australia.
Liu Xueliang, BYD’s Asia-Pacific GM, said in April that the US/Israel-Iran war had “fundamentally altered people’s attitudes towards energy supply”, expediting demand for EVs.
In comparison though, last year Toyota sold nearly 240,000 cars in Australia, making it the only manufacturer to sell in excess of 200,000 units in the country. But BYD aims to catch up, selling an all-time high of 7,702 cars there in April, second only to Toyota’s 15,185 sales.
But the Japanese giant is not about to ease up and let BYD overtake, announcing today that it will produce 10,000 more vehicles for Australia, and setting a higher full-year sales forecast for this year.
Toyota has also organised an earlier launch there of its first plug-in hybrid, the Rav4 PHEV.