Shark 6 exceeding ‘biggest expectations’

BYD Australia's new Chief Operating Officer Stephen Collins, and the newly appointed boss of Denza Mark Harland, explained how the Shark 6 ute is performing unlike “anything we’ve seen before”.

Harland said the Shark 6 “exceeded even my biggest expectations”.

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“We had lofty ambitions like we do for everything at BYD. It’s just the receptivity to something different, something new in that category which has had, you know, a lot of incumbents for many, many years,” he said.

Collins said the dealers had never experienced anything like the public's response to the Shark 6 launch.

“Dealers reported to me that they’d never seen anything like that, and when I say that, dealers would say the day the price was revealed, there was literally a queue outside the dealership for the doors to open.”

“It continues to do around 1500 units a month and so it’s been really well received.”

Collins confirmed we’d only just seen the beginning of the Shark 6 story, with the brand now looking to build on the ute’s runaway success, as it plotted more variants in the near future.

“We’ve just got the one model, so we’re looking at a few different options. Different variants we could bring in the future to grow it even further. So it’s settled at around 1500 units [a month], but we think we could do more if we could bring those to market.”

What could some of those upgrades look like? Denza’s Prado-rivalling B5 off-roader, which is due before the end of this year (although likely for early 2026 deliveries) and shares its platform with the Shark gets various upgrades, which Collins confirmed BYD would be looking at.

“We have a really open and direct line with the factory and into R&D,” he said. “We’ve even recently had the Chairman out here looking for feedback on how we can improve Shark.”

“So yeah, I think there’s going to be that cross-pollination of technologies and upgrades where it makes sense.”

“The speed with which we can bring some of those to market is pretty much unprecedented, so you know we’re really well supported by the factory and the R&D juggernaut in China.”

Key upgrades include a rear differential lock (which should address some of the loose-surface performance the Shark 6 was criticised for at its launch), as well as payload and towing upgrades that the B5 has received prior to its arrival in Australia.

Harland said the reactivity of the factory on that front was "like nothing I’ve ever experienced before from other OEMs in terms of the willingness to support and react".

“Yes, hardware takes longer than software, but there’s really nothing off the table,” said Harland.

“If we say, well we really need this. If you want we can improve volume by X by adding this hardware, then the likelihood is it will be in a mid-cycle upgrade, it’s not the next-gen, it’s not three to five years, no one thinks even that far ahead.”

Collins said there are times where the factory is even too keen to help.

“There’s some discussions where on occasion we have to push back. Where we’re in China and the factory wants to you know, go even harder, and we go — oh we might not need that, let’s leave it for a little bit later. There’s just this continual desire to bring new tech and upgrades and features to the market.”

“It’s a good problem to have,” said Collins.