The power war continues, and with 350kW and 700Nm on tap, the BYD Shark 6 is set to stay top of the time sheets!
The Performance Shark 6 is now positioned above the current Premium Shark 6. Picture: Supplied
We can choose to try and ignore it, but South Africans love fast double-cab bakkies. And to go fast, you need power. Ford was the first to pull the trigger with their Ranger Raptor.
It was the beginning of 2023. And every other high-performance double-cab bakkie on offer by anybody else at best offered between 165kW and 190kW from their turbodiesel mills.
Ranger Raptor thought unbeatable
Producing 292kW of 3.0-litre V6 twin-turbo power to go along with 583Nm of angry-sounding American-built torque resulted in a tested 0-100km/h time of just 6.90 seconds.
The competition couldn’t come close on the road or off it for that matter. There would be no challenge from Toyota with a potent GR Hilux running an LC300 engine. Or any chance that Ford would lend VW their Raptor engine for an Amarok R.
Everybody thought it was game over. Ford had settled the war once and for all. But what nobody saw coming to an outright power battle was the Chinese.
BYD Shark 6 goes fastest
Fast forward to 2025, and BYD unleashes its Shark 6 PHEV onto the local market. It was at first dismissed as being a bit gimmicky, with a small 1.5-litre turbo petrol engine married to a 29.6-kWh battery and a pair of electric motors.
But offering up a combined 321kW and 650Nm. It was more powerful on paper. And it was also substantially quicker on the road too, with a tested 0-100 km/h time of 5.66 seconds.
Both hit electronically limited top speeds of around 180km/h. But it’s the BYD Shark 6 that got there first. And it’s the Chinese double-cab bakkie once again that rolled in gear quicker, too.
But not all plain sailing
While the BYD Shark 6 might have ruled at the top of the time sheets. It does have two rather obvious shortcomings, though, for diehard bakkie users to take it seriously.
It only offers a maximum rated braked towing capacity of 2 500kg. Same as the Ford Ranger Raptor. But not the 3 500kg benchmark number required in the segment.
And thanks to electronics that don’t quite understand the traction controls required. It is also prone to getting stuck on silly little inclines and not handle the rough stuff all that well.
One could argue that the BYD Shark 6 has a bit of a city slicker reputation. But BYD has been quick to react and is about to locally launch their upgraded performance derivative in an attempt to address this misconception.
Upgraded BYD Shark 6 even faster
The 1.5-litre turbo engine has been replaced with a bigger capacity 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine. And while still running the same size 29.6-kWh battery, the front electric motor also offers more urge, while rear electric motor offers the same as before.
The combined power and torque outputs are now set at 350kW and 700Nm respectively. And the claimed 0-100 km/h time is down to a mere 5.5 seconds.
This will see the BYD Shark 6 pull even further away from the Ford Ranger Raptor on the street. Unthinkable just a few years ago.
And now more capable too
More importantly, what this power war has done is make the BYD Shark 6 more capable than before. The Performance derivative that is to go on sale soon now offers a maximum rated braked towing capacity of 3 500 kg.
And uprated suspension and bigger brakes are also said to do duty to cope with the stresses of lugging around an extra tonne of weight when required.
BYD did not forget about the slipping and sliding around either. And the Shark 6 Performance now features a Crawl mode that activates between 0-12km/h and uses the more progressive petrol engine to help it get up steep climbs and over rocks, etc.
Pricing
- Shark 1.5T DMO Premium – R989 900
- Shark 2.0T DMO Performance – R1 149 900
Pricing includes a five-year/100 000 km maintenance plan and an eight-year/200 000 km battery warranty.
