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BYD Slashes Price of Electric Car and Becomes Cheapest in Australia [video]

28 points thelastgallon 1 hour ago 32 comments

motionlessveloc 34 minutes ago | parent

Non-video story: https://thedriven.io/2026/09/16/australias-cheapest-new-car-...

TL;DR: AUD 19,900 driveway (means taxes etc included), or about US$14k. The main limitation is the 220 km (135 mi) range, which is fine for a city runabout but not great for road tripping.

rwbt 25 minutes ago | parent

I'd love a city run around car inclusive of all taxes for $15k or less.

hdgvhicv 20 minutes ago | parent

I bought a 4 year old leaf with 25k on the clock in May for £7k ($10k). Get about 150 miles on a full charge. I’d rather a little more as I tend to do 90 a day, so if it doesn’t charge offpeak overnight for some reason I’m left with a manual recharge during the day. But I do a lot of miles (25k a year)

The main downside on long trips is the DC is chamedo, not standard ccs, so there are fewer locations and they are sometimes broken or full.

Nursie 19 minutes ago | parent

It’s pretty tiny too, so not a road trip car IMHO.

That said, coupled with home solar to power it, this is very cheap way to get on the road and I will likely go this direction in future - one of these for the city and something a bit bigger/more rugged to go bush once in a while.

rightnutwingjob 17 minutes ago | parent

$20k for the car plus $5k for roof top solar, plus $500,000 for the house to put it on.

Or: a $2000 Corolla and the rental home you’re already in.

dbetteridge 15 minutes ago | parent

500k doesn't get you much house in Australia these days, try double that.

luipugs 13 minutes ago | parent

$500,000? That's just the price for the garage.

andrew_lettuce 11 minutes ago | parent

That's great if you already have a clean, high mileage Corolla or Accord, but good luck finding one for 2k

Nursie 7 minutes ago | parent

I’m not in a rental home, and wouldn’t be anyway.

I want solar and a battery (don’t have it yet, it’s on the list) to cut my energy bills and guard against power cuts anyway.

So neither of these things is an ‘extra’ expense for me getting a small EV.

There are a total of 5 corollas available in Australia for $2k or less. Each one is ratty, beat up and 19+ years old, I wouldn’t want to chance taking any of them on the freeway, and you’d still have to fuel them.

defrost 8 minutes ago | parent

> a bit bigger/more rugged to go bush once in a while.

Depends whether you're taking the Birdsville track or the Bibbulmun track really.

The shorter one can be done a on a red postie bike, the longer one won't even need that :-)

Raed667 18 minutes ago | parent

That's an insane price and the range is fine for the daily needs of the large majority of people.

€12k in France (where i am) can't get you any new car, even the cheapest ICE Dacia is more expensive than that now.

chvid 14 minutes ago | parent

The BYD is sold in Europe but there is higher VAT and a special EU Chinese car import tax - so these cars are about 20k euro.

There is also the Renault Twingo which is in the same class.

Raed667 10 minutes ago | parent

I checked the Twingo and it is starting at €16k and an Opel Corsa (without any options) is more than €19k

pantalaimon 9 minutes ago | parent

The tax is only on electric cars, vehicles with a combustion engine are excempt - that's why you see all those ads for BYD Hybrids now.

Nursie 13 minutes ago | parent

Australia doesn’t tariff Chinese car imports, on account of no longer having any car industry of our own to defend.

That said we do still have a hefty “luxury car tax” for anything over $80k, which is a hangover from when there was an industry here. The government aren’t going to lift that any time soon.

Its current function is to select for expensive trucks over expensive sedans, because trucks are “commercial” and exempt, making our roads less safe overall. Thanks government.

mnsc 4 minutes ago | parent

So you are saying that there's a widespread problem with people looking to buy a car for $100k but realizing there's a $6k tax they go, "I can't afford that" and instead buy a unsafe truck?

grahar64 29 minutes ago | parent

In NZ there are BYDs everywhere. Why are they not in US yet?

hdgvhicv 28 minutes ago | parent

Freedom

usrnm 24 minutes ago | parent

Didn't Americans send all their freedom to Iran?

burner420042 19 minutes ago | parent

You mean the state of Iran?

bestouff 16 minutes ago | parent

So now Iran with their freedom ?

3848485858 12 minutes ago | parent

just destroy your industrial base and become fully dependent on china bro

pantalaimon 11 minutes ago | parent

Same reason they are not in EU, tarrifs.

SapporoChris 5 minutes ago | parent

"BYD faces a 17% tariff on imported electric vehicles in Europe, in addition to the standard 10% base rate."

"BYD has sold 19,241 fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in Europe last month, a 255% soar from the same period a year ago."

Small numbers, but I am pretty sure they're in Europe. https://eletric-vehicles.com/byd/byd-sales-in-europe-more-th...

tzs 2 minutes ago | parent

They are in the EU. The tariff is 27% so they aren't as numerous as they would be without it but there are still plenty.

There will probably be a lot more starting next year since they are building a factory in the EU which is scheduled to start production at the end of this year. That bypasses tariffs.

wpm 10 minutes ago | parent

Regulatory capture, legalized bribery whoops I mean political donations, and protectionism. Gotta let Detroit keep making crappy bro-dozers that get 15MPG.

tancop 9 minutes ago | parent

Because American auto makers convinced the government that BYD is price dumping in every market segment at the same time and somehow staying profitable.

xbmcuser 15 minutes ago | parent

With free electricity bring offered in the afternoon because of excess solar would be a great car for most peoples daily commute cheaper even than public transport as this is less than $6 per day over 10 years

batisteo 10 minutes ago | parent

This is sad news, city have to get rid of cars, and make public transport free if needed