The local launch of New Zealand’s newest electric vehicle brand, Chinese marque BYD, has been labelled a success by brand manager Warren Willmot and Andrew Simms dealer principal Matthew Wales.
Willmot and Wales celebrated the “unprecedented” debut on Thursday evening on a Q&A live stream hosted late last Thursday on EVs & Beyond.
Thursday saw the brand open its orderbooks nationwide for the Atto 3, its first vehicle to market in New Zealand. The day included BYD confirming the model’s pricing, with its 50kWh and 60kWh variants priced at $52,990 and $56,990 respectively, plus on-road costs.
“The orders today have been unprecedented. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many orders for a new model in one day,” said Wales.
“We’ve been following BYD for quite some time. I think BYD is going to be a real success for the New Zealand market, and having Ateco pick up the brand is really positive for us. We think the potential for this brand in New Zealand is phenomenal.”
“We ordered for what we thought. After today, I think we’re going to need a bigger boat. Demand has exceeded expectations,” Willmot added.
Willmot was coy regarding just how many Atto 3s had been ordered for the local market, and on the topic of how many orders the brand had fielded on day one. But he expects that the brand won’t encounter any supply problems between now and the end of the year.
The first demonstrator Atto 3 models are set to arrive in the country in July. First customer deliveries are set to follow in September.
“It’s my expectation that if you wanted to order an Atto 3 this year, you would have one before Christmas. I’m not going to commit to actual numbers. It’s not just producing the cars, but also the major factor of getting the cars to New Zealand,” said Willmot.
He cited that on top of the supply constraint challenges manufacturers around the world are facing, BYD is also battling delays caused by the significant congestion currently being felt in Shanghai’s ports.
In spite of the strong demand for the model, some in the electric vehicle community questioned the discrepancy between the Atto 3’s local pricing and its pricing both in Australia and in China.
Willmot defended the pricing, citing the exchange rate, GST, the higher specification of locally sold models, and the brand’s dealership model in New Zealand as all contributing to the Atto 3’s price structure.
He added that the Atto 3 isn’t necessarily a direct rival for the MG ZS EV; a model that some EV owners have benchmarked it against on a price basis. He believes Atto 3 challenges the likes of the Tesla Model 3 and Polestar 2.
“The Atto 3 is a very high quality car, it’s not a cheap car. We’ve decided to bring it in at a price point to make it affordable for New Zealanders,” Willmot said.
“If you’re looking at similar cars in the market, I think you need to look to the other Chinese-manufacturered cars; one with a Swedish brand and one that comes from America.
“The level of tech and spec on [the Atto 3] is absolutely incredible, and we’re very fortunate to bring it in at the price that we are.
“China is a different market. They sell 27 million cars a year there roughly. You’ve really got to compare apples with apples. In China they’ve got government subsidies, different tax rates. We’ve got shipping, foreign exchange. There’s a whole lot of factors that come into it.”
Willmot also provided several updates regarding the Atto 3’s specs.
He noted that the model will receive Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity via an over-the-air update later in the year. He also confirmed that the Atto 3 will be eligible for the government’s Clean Car Discount rebate regardless of whether it has been crash tested by ANCAP at the time of launch, or not.
He said that the car has already been tested to Europe’s crash standards and has passed, adding that testing with ANCAP is currently under way. “We are expecting a good result, and that should be published before the end of the year,” Willmot said.
The brand will also have the capacity to add features to vehicles locally, with Willmot citing heated seats and a heated steering wheel (two features currently absent from the Atto 3’s spec sheet) as examples of this.
