With no car industry to protect, Australia is awash with Chinese EVs – especially BYDs

Vanessa Farrer bought a BYD Sealion 6 for the equivalent of around NZ$54,000. (Image: BYD)

Sat, 08 Mar 2025

By Michael E. Miller,with photography by Mridula Amin for the Washington Post Shoppers streamed through a Sydney strip mall on a recent morning, past duelling mattress outlets and into the neon glow of a BYD megastore. As a robot brought them BYD-branded water bottles, the potential customers examined rows of gleaming electric vehicles.Vanessa Farrer had already paid for one of the Chinese vehicles – a Sealion 6 plug-in hybrid SUV that cost about US$31,000 (NZ$54,000) – and was waiting for it to be delivered a week later.Her hu...

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