New BYD Shark pick-up aims to take a bite out of Ford Ranger sales
The hi-tech hybrid pick-up truck will make its UK debut at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed
We’re going to need a bigger boat. Or the Ford Ranger is going to have to watch its back at least, because the BYD Shark plug-in hybrid pick-up truck is coming to the UK soon and is looking to make a serious splash with its debut at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed next month.
The newcomer clearly smells blood in the water, because it’s hoping to take a big bite out of the UK’s pick-up truck market and the best-selling Ranger, which has won our Pick-up of the Year award six times on the trot.
The Shark is almost certainly going to undercut the Ranger PHEV, which is currently available from £40,830 (excluding VAT), as well as the new electric Toyota Hilux that has just gone on sale, with prices starting from £42,170 (also excluding VAT).
Launched in Mexico in 2024 as the BYD Shark 6, the hybrid pick-up truck was the Chinese brand’s first product introduced outside its home market. In fact, there are no plans for it to be sold there, although it is available in several other countries including Australia, Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Exactly when it’ll invade our waters has yet to be confirmed, however.
How does the BYD Shark compare to the Ford Ranger?
The BYD Shark is offered exclusively as a double-cab pick-up and with a plug-in hybrid powertrain that the brand calls DMO (Dual Mode Off-Road). With 435bhp on tap, this great white can do 0-62mph in just 5.7 seconds, but thanks to a sizeable 29.58kWh battery, it can also cover up to 55 miles on pure-electric power. For comparison, the Ranger PHEV delivers 275bhp and just 27 miles of EV range.
However, the maximum load length, maximum load capacity and towing capacity are better in the newly launched Ranger PHEV. The BYD boasts a towing capacity of 2,500kg and can take up to 790kg worth of stuff in its load bed, whereas the Ford can haul up to 3,500kg and lug around 1,000kg in the bed.
The Shark’s zero-emissions driving abilities, combined with CO2 emissions of 46g/km, should make it an appealing left-field choice for company car drivers. Especially because double-cab pick-up trucks are no longer classified as commercial vehicles, so instead of paying a flat tax rate of £792 per year, these types of trucks are now classed as private vehicles.
As a result, their CO2 emissions dictate which Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) band they land in. That’s why the traditional diesel-powered Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok attract the maximum 37 per cent company car tax rate, while the Ranger PHEV falls into the 20 per cent band. The more efficient BYD Shark could fall into an even lower band, although not as low as the Hilux BEV, which sits in the 4 per cent band.
Convincing Ford Ranger customers to try something new
In 2025, BYD’s UK deputy country manager, Steve Beattie, told Auto Express that he was keen to get the Shark onto UK shores. That’s in part because of the recent changes to how pick-up trucks are taxed, plus he’s confident it will steal sales away from the Ford Ranger.
“[The pick-up truck] market is dominated by the Ranger, and Ford does an incredible job with that. What's interesting is the market has just changed for that vehicle because it was effectively a company car tax break, but [trucks] are now being classed as cars
“So, ultimately, all of those diesel [pick-up truck drivers] now have to move to something that is either plug-in hybrid or electric, and this being plug-in hybrid I think is going to fit really well.
“It’s also just something different,” he added. “We've seen that with Tesla Model 3 customers and Model Y customers – they say ‘I've had this for a while, I want to change into something different’ and that gives us an opportunity. Now for those Ranger customers, we’ll have an alternative here.”
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