Promotion aims to lift Atto 3, Dolphin and Seal from first quarter doldrum.

CHINA’S BYD, a local high-flier abruptly brought down to Earth this year with the collapse of interest in new electric cars, has upped the stakes in its attempt to revitalise.

Talk about BYD being among those makes hit particularly hard by in the new sales climate has been rife. It is understood high-ups from the make’s Shanghai office visited the national office in Auckland last week.

Today the local operation, part of the Ateco Group, kicked in an incentive campaign valued at almost $3000 that applies to its three battery-reliant cars here - Atto 3, Seal and Dolphin.

Purchasers of those models stand to achieve 20,000 kilometres’ free Road User Charges - which values out to $1560 spend - and a 7.2 kiloWatt mini charger it values at $1299.

The incentive runs until May 31.

Terms and conditions include that the offer is available only on new and dealer demonstrator examples of those cars in existing inventory and won’t apply on vehicles arriving in NZ from June 1.

BYD is China’s largest electric car maker and briefly topped Tesla as the world’s largest producer.

It has been a massive influence on the NZ-new electric sector, wholly due to the Atto 3, which hit the market almost two years ago and instantly established as a big seller.

It also won the New Zealand Car of the Year for 2023, the first national award BYD has ever received. This prize - pictured in the hands of BYD local boss Warren Willmot - is delivered by the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild.

Atto 3’s run has delivered 4904 registrations to date, to make it the third most popular NZ-new EV in total population count, though well below the market dominant Tesla Model Y, on 8407, and Model 3 on 8343.

Almost that success accumulated prior to December 31, when the National-ACT-NZ First coalition government curtailed the Clean Car Discount, that enabled a $7015 rebate on sub-$80,000 NZ-new electric cars.

As of April 1, EVs also cop a Road User Charge, which goes toward road maintenance, of $78 per 1000km.

A general drop in the economic picture has meanwhile also hurt new car buying in general, but changes specific to EVs have hurt the electric scene in particular.

That timing was also poor for BYD, because it chose to release the Dolphin hatchback and Seal sedan late last year, the latter coming in right at the time when the incentive disappeared.

Those cars have achieved 511 and 122 registrations respectively, the bulk for Dolphin coming in the final months of last year. For the first quarter of 2024, Dolphin has accumulated 24 registrations and the Seal 63.

The Atto 3, meantime, has plummeted to 38 registrations, of which 21 were achieved in January.

The single biggest incentive for any sub-$80,000 EV here continues to be the $20,000 price reduction on the Volkswagen ID.4, which brings that car down to $20,000. That car was also caught in the Clean Car withdrawal, stock landing just four weeks ahead of the new Government announcing it was kiboshing the scheme.

VW NZ admitted it was caught out by this, as it had agreed to buying hundreds of ID.4s and ID.5s from the factory, inking the contract in early 2023 when the incentive was looking solid.