2000 BYD Atto 3 electric SUVs secured for Victoria

BYD Australia has secured and reserved 2000 new BYD Atto 3 electric SUVs exclusively for Victorian buyers so they can capitalise on the state’s EV rebates before they expire on June 30.

News broke of the $3000 rebate’s axing last week, when it was discovered the Victorian government had quietly outlined plans to abolish the incentive scheme 11 months earlier than promised, regardless of whether all 20,000 rebates were spoken for.

Unsurprisingly, the move evoked a strong negative response from both the Australian auto industry and potential EV customers alike, but it simultaneously provided certain auto brands with an unprecedented sales opportunity.

BYD is one of those brands, with local CEO Luke Todd claiming there are 750 vehicles already on Australian soil and ready for delivery, while the remaining 1250 will be ready by the end of the year.

Solar Victoria says there are still 2310 rebates available before the garden state’s incentive scheme ends, but hasn’t clarified whether this is from the 20,000 total rebates promised by the government or just those left over from the latest round, since rebates have been released in batches.

VFACTS sales data suggests it’s probably the latter, given 23,926 EVs have been sold nationally so far this year (to May), while 33,410 were sold in 2022 (nationally). The incentive scheme came into effect as of May 2021.

The faint silver lining of the whole situation – besides BYD’s influx of stock – is the fact you don’t need to have taken delivery of your new sub-$68,740 EV by June 30 to be eligible for the rebate; you just need to have finalised and signed the contract of sale by the cut-off date.

“If all eligibility criteria are met, the car dealer will apply the subsidy as a discount to your final payment and you will see the subsidy discount applied to your eligible ZEV on the purchase documents,” Solar Victoria says on its website.

From there, the vehicle must be “delivered and registered with VicRoads within a maximum of six months from the date the customer enters into the Contract of Sale”.

BYD isn’t the only EV specialist to have secured an influx of well-timed stock. Polestar says it has an extra 250 examples of its Polestar 2 fastback sedan waiting in the wings for purchase and delivery within the next two months.

A spokesperson for the Swedish-Chinese brand said the timing of this new inventory’s arrival was purely coincidental and already in the pipeline before the incentive scheme’s pending abolishment was discovered.

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