New BYD Racco is a low-cost box on wheels, and it’s coming to Europe
This super-cute kei car could be BYD’s ‘E-car’ entry-level model
BYD recently unveiled its first kei car for Japan at the Tokyo Motor Show and now there’s potential for it to come to Europe.
The Racco is a boxy supermini-sized car that would essentially compete in the city car segment underneath the BYD Dolphin Surf - which went on sale in the UK this summer.
Speaking to Auto Express, BYD’s executive vice president, Stella Li said “If you follow our news in Japan, we are launching a kei car. That kei car is exactly the E-car we are talking about. It’s going to be very interesting to follow the EU regulation to see if there’s room to bring that car here.”
The regulation Ms Li is referring to is Europe’s proposed ‘E-car’ vehicle classification, which European manufacturers have been lobbying the European Parliament for in order to help make small electric cars cheaper to produce. The city car ‘A’ segment is well and truly on BYD’s radar as Ms Li has said the firm wants to compete in market sectors from ‘A all the way to the F’.
Already one of the cheapest electric cars on sale in the UK, the Dolphin Surf costs from £18,650. While offering plug-in hybrid power is key to BYD’s strategy, the Racco would be EV-only and would have to undercut the Dolphin Surf (which is also electric-only).
The battery is even smaller than the 30kWh unit in the Dolphin Surf. The Racco uses a 20kWh battery for a WLTP-rated range of 112 miles - though it has a pretty quick 100kW charging rate, so we’d expect a 10 to 80 per cent top up to only take around 20 minutes.
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