BYD Shark bakkie lacks stamina for all-day Raptor hunting

The BYD Shark is South Africa’s fastest production bakkie. Picture: Jaco van der Merwe The question “BYD Shark against who?” along with a picture of the bakkie kicking up dirt parades on billboards all around town. After spending some time in the bakkie recently, we have a question of our own.

“With or without a charged-up battery?” The BYD Shark was introduced last year as South Africa’s first plug-in hybrid (PHEV) bakkie. It is powered by a combination of a 1.5-litre petrol engine and two electric motors hooked up to a battery pack. When the 29.58kWh lithium iron phosphate battery is charged, the bakkie is every bit as lethal as its aquatic namesake.

For not having a rival in sight on the drag strip, we’ll allow the BYD marketers their bullish billboard approach. But to hunt down Raptors with the regularity of a marine predator, the BYD Shark needs battery power. Once the battery starts running low and the bakkie becomes more reliant on its petrol mill, it’s not the deadliest of weapons anymore.

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Still faster than most lethargic four-cylinder diesel bakkies, but not an undisputed drag strip king. Trying to explain exactly what goes down under the bonnet in a hybrid is not all that easy. In fact, not even BYD themselves have explained this to us in much detail.

What we do know is that the bakkie’s petrol mill makes 135kW of power and 260Nm of torque. A front axle-mounted electric motor produces 170kW/310Nm, and a rear axle-mounted motor brings another 150kW/340Nm to the party. BYD rates the combined power at 321kW/640Nm, which already tells you it’s not as straightforward as merely adding the numbers up.

When you floor the Shark in EV mode with a full battery, it is easy to imagine that the full instant 320kW of the two electric motors is at play. It is so brutal off the line that you’ll never guess the monstrosity weighs all of 2 710kg. But because the bakkie is a PHEV and not an EV, its pure-electric range is rated at around 100km.

Even less, depending on how many Raptors you’d picked off since charging. If you can’t make it toa DC charger, which charges the BYD Shark from 20 to 80% in less than 30 minutes, or charge it at home overnight, you can prolong your fun in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) mode, providing you manage the energy system. BYD provides the option of selecting a target percentage of between 25 and 70% of what it calls the battery’s “State of Charge (SOC)”. To achieve this, engine power is applied to keep the battery at the desired level.

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