This tough new BYD is an immediate sales hit: 2026 BYD Ti7 takes off in its homeland as new Hyundai Santa Fe and Toyota Kluger rival with hybrid 4x4 capabilities - but when will it land in Oz?

Tough new BYD is an immediate sales hit

BYD’s Ti 7 is selling at a huge rate in China as Australia prepares itself for the possibility of this upper mid-sized Hyundai Santa Fe rival to land locally.

The Ti7 is sold in China under BYD’s Fangchengbao sub-brand and has been an enormous success from the moment it went on pre-sale in February this year. Within 80 days of going on sale the model reached 50,000 sales. Now as the year closes the Ti 7 is proving to be the heavy lifter for the brand with 37,405 sales just for the month of November.

BYD has all but confirmed the Ti 7 will come to Australia with the brand’s local boss making it clear a larger sized model was on his wish list.

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“From the BYD side, we're definitely looking at a larger size SUV,” BYD Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Stephen Collins said earlier this year.

Since BYD’s boss made the comments the brand has debuted the Ti 7 in Thailand at the Bangkok motor show, another sign the model is getting closer to Australia, as the Thai market is also right-hand drive as opposed to the left-hand drive environment of the Chinese domestic market.

The Ti 7 is nearly five metres long, with boxy, rugged styling not unlike the Land Rover Defender. While it uses a monocoque chassis rather than a ladder frame like the Toyota LandCruiser Prado, BYD claims the Ti 7 is still off-road capable, as long as the terrain isn’t too extreme.

Still the Ti7 has good approach and departure angles along with a 600mm wading depth.

2026 BYD Ti 7

Despite its size, the Ti7 is only a five-seater, and it uses familiar BYD plug-in hybrid tech combining a 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with electric motor at the front and the rear. A 35.6 kWh battery pack provides up to 200km of electric driving range according to the more lenient Chinese testing cycle (CLTC).

The next 12 months are going to be incredibly busy for BYD and its luxury sub brand in Denza Australia.

On BYD’s Australian launch list is the just-arrived Atto 1 small electric hatch and Atto 2 small electric SUV, followed by the Sealion 5 PHEV small SUV and Sealion 8 PHEV seven seater SUV later in 2026.

Denza meanwhile has just launched its B5 Prado-sized luxury off-roader, alongside the larger B8 three-row LandCruiser 300 rival in Australia.