China-made BYD Shark pickup is a predator circling global truck market

DETROIT — There’s a Shark circling one of the greatest profit pools for American automakers globally, as Chinese automaker BYD Auto expands its reach and product portfolio with a pickup truck.

Without the vehicle’s branding badge, the BYD Shark could pass as an American-made product. In many ways, it looks like a smaller pickup from Ford Motor. The China-made truck features uncanny exterior resemblances to a Ford Explorer mixed with the popular F-150 — part of the Ford brand’s best-selling truck lineup in the U.S. for 48 years.

Much like BYD’s Seagull — a small all-electric hatchback that starts at just 69,800 yuan (or less than $10,000) — there’s fear among global automakers that Chinese rivals like the Warren Buffett-backed BYD could flood their markets, undercutting domestic production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their own auto industries.

BYD has not announced plans to sell the Shark in the U.S., but it has entered countries where General Motors, Ford and Toyota Motor sell pickup trucks, including Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

In the U.S., pickup trucks are the bread-and-butter vehicles for the Detroit automakers, combining for millions of units of sales annually. They’ve also become increasingly important for Toyota in the U.S. and globally.

“When you consider the importance, from a revenue perspective, that these products bring to manufacturers, it’s the franchise,” said Terry Woychowski, president of automotive at Caresoft Global who formerly was a chief engineer of GM’s full-size trucks. “There’s been a lot of interest in this vehicle because of the market.”

Caresoft, an engineering benchmarking and consulting firm, has torn down and examined roughly 40 China-built EVs from the likes of BYD, Nio and others.

The Michigan-based company digitally and physically analyzes every part of a vehicle, from bolts and latches to seats, motors and battery casings. It then determines how its clients — mainly automakers and suppliers — can improve efficiencies and cut costs in their products.

“It’s a great product. It’s sold well. They’re trying to sell in high volume in Mexico, but it’s also being localized in Thailand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said when asked by CNBC earlier this month about the BYD Shark. “If we want to be a global player in pickups, like we are now, we have to compete.”

While Ford’s F-150 reigns supreme in the U.S., Toyota’s Hilux has been the top-selling truck outside of North America for many years.

When asked about Chinese competitors earlier this month, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said the company “needs to be prepared to respond to the global needs of the global markets,” regardless of the competition.

“We try to focus on the needs of each individual market and try to be best in town. So that will be the strategy that we have,” Toyoda said during a media roundtable at the CES tech conference.

BYD reportedly exported more than more than 10,000 BYD Sharks in 2024. Such sales are expected to increase going forward, especially as the company prepares to expand production.

BYD has grown its share of vehicle exports from China from 2%, or less than 56,000 units, in 2022 to 8% in 2024, or 350,500 units, according to BofA Securities.

Exporting has continued to assist BYD in increasing its sales globally to approximately 4.3 million vehicles in 2024, up from roughly 3 million a year earlier. Wall Street analysts expect that to continue to grow this year to roughly 5.5 million this year, according to Goldman Sachs.

“BYD is starting to tap into the overseas market with compelling (highly competitive, innovative) products, which we expect could become a second growth driver for the company, contributing 31% of incremental vehicle sales volume over 2022-2030E, Goldman Sachs analyst Tina Hou said in a Jan. 14 investor note.

The BYD Shark is expected to help the automaker grow its sales and profits. It’s a midsize pickup truck — which has a smaller market in the U.S. compared to globally — with a plug-in hybrid powertrain that combines electric vehicle components such as a battery and electric motors with a small 1.5-liter internal combustion engine.

The vehicle can operate as an all-electric vehicle or have the engine power its batteries and electric motors, with a range of more than 500 combined miles between the battery and engine, according to BYD.

The Shark starts at about 899,980 pesos ($44,000) in Mexico. That’s far more than BYD’s other models but still much cheaper than many hybrid or all-electric trucks in the U.S. It’s in line with pricing of midrange models of the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma midsize pickup trucks in Mexico.

Taking the BYD Shark for a spin on private property with a mix of smooth and broken pavement in Michigan, the pickup truck drives well. Its acceleration is quick, but not as fast as the Tesla Cybertruck or GM’s all-electric pickups. It’s quiet, but there’s definitely room for improvements to the ride and handling, which feel a bit less refined than current trucks in the U.S.

The overall build quality of the Shark is impressive, but there are quirky elements of the vehicle as well as some “shared” best practices with current pickups by Ford and GM, according to Woychowski.

Some familiar practices and elements include the overall exterior design being similar to the F-150, including its lighting and a pullout tailgate step; the front seat interior design resembling Toyota; and certain production aspects of the vehicle being used from other trucks. Most notably, its frame — the backbone of the vehicle — is dipped in wax. That’s a process to reduce corrosion that GM has been doing for decades, according to Woychowski.

“You can tell where they benchmarked and whom,” Woychowski said while inspecting the vehicle’s underbody. “Ford back here, GM under there and Toyota over there.”

That’s not to say the vehicle isn’t unique. While Caresoft still needs to tear down the Shark to understand its build processes and parts better, the vehicle’s interior design and, most notably, its hybrid powertrain is unlike anything currently offered in the U.S.

For example, some of the battery technologies are placed under the back seats, eliminating storage space, and there are bungee cords to hold up the vehicle’s back bench seat when it’s folded.

“This is actually quite poorly done,” Woychowski said regarding the back seat. “I would watch this space. I bet they fix this up quite nicely.”

Other not-so-easy to spot unusual elements include an over-engineered rear suspension with dual control arms (instead of one each); a considerably straight frame; an unnecessary amount of jack lifts under the vehicle for lifting it; and using hydraulic arms for the heavy tailgate, he said.

Woychowski said clients have taken particular interest in Chinese automakers, including BYD, because of their growth and quickness in developing new products and making improvements to existing models.

“It’s a credible truck,” Woychowski said about the Shark. “There’s some things they did very well. There’s some things that they can do to clean it up, but that’s not a hard job to do.”

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.