BYD Shark 6 2025 Tow Test Review

The 2025 BYD Shark 6 is available in one trim level, the Premium, and costs $57,990 plus on-road costs (ORCs).

Main options include a choice of three exterior colours (standard Great White or $700 optional Tidal Black or Deep Sea Blue).

For a new entrant in the market, there’s a surprisingly well-specified list of factory-approved accessories comprising wheels and tyres, bullbars, roof racks, rear hoop bar, tonneau covers, canopies and more.

The warranty period is six years/150,000km, excluding the battery, which is covered for eight years or 160,000km (whichever comes first). Scheduled service intervals are 12 months/20,000km, with a capped-price servicing offer (paid per service) currently totalling $2489 over five years. The first 3500km/six-month service is free.

The key features include a hitch-receiver towbar and seven-pin electrical connection, 18-inch alloys, side steps, roof rails, and LED lights front and rear. The tub has a spray-in liner, tie-down hooks, lights, soft-open-and-close tailgate and three power plugs, including a V2L (vehicle to load) outlet.

Inside, there’s a leather steering wheel, synthetic leather seat trim, front seat power adjustment with heating and ventilation, dual-zone air-conditioning with rear vents, and a 12-speaker Dynaudio sound system. There’s also a V2L outlet in the rear cabin area.

There is no towing-specific technology you find elsewhere, such as blind-spot monitoring according to trailer length, a trailer light test or a standard electric brake controller.

However, the BYD is rich in its infotainment and tech features elsewhere, with a configurable digital instrument cluster and head-up display, 15.6-inch centre screen (which can be swivelled between portrait and landscape modes), AM/FM and digital radio, satellite navigation, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 50W wireless phone charging, and USB-A and USB-C ports front and rear.

There’s also a smartphone app that offers remote control for features like locking and unlocking, climate control operation and so on. For towing, there are excellent side and 360-degree camera views as well as a rear camera view.

Safety highlights include front and rear cross-traffic alert and braking, lane departure warning and lane departure prevention, trailer sway control and active cruise control. There are seven airbags, while overall the BYD Shark 6 has received the full five-star ANCAP safety rating.

The powertrain is much more sophisticated than your typical dual cab, with the plug-in hybrid driveline incorporating a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine, an electric motor on each axle, and a 29.5kWh LFP battery pack mounted into the ladder-frame chassis.

There’s no mechanical link between front and rear axles, with an electric motor sitting on each to provide drive. While SsangYong started the trend years ago, the BYD is also one of few utes with an independent coil-spring rear suspension.

The 2025 BYD Shark 6 is sensational value for money in the segment. It offers a unique combination of features, technology and sheer metal for your money that isn’t available elsewhere for $60K.

The initial impression when driving the Shark 6 is of a large, luxury SUV. It’s quiet, smooth and interior presentation is very good. Even the ride quality is a departure from the taut ride of typical dual cabs – it does thump through larger bumps, but in the main it’s very smooth.

Performance, especially off the mark, is stunning for such a large, heavy ute – the instant response is a major departure from the low-rpm lag we’re all familiar with in dual-cab turbo-diesels.

Towing performance is also very good. We grabbed a 2400kg (as towed) caravan from RV Connection at St Marys North, NSW, and headed out on the road. The camera views when hitching up are at a good angle for solo trailer hitching, and the suspension drooped just 20mm at the rear and rose only 5mm at the front, with around 200kg on the towball.

The Shark 6’s ability to get up to speed on the freeway and for overtaking with a heavy trailer behind is excellent. Stability when towing is also good, with no sway or excessive pitching going on at 100km/h.

While the 2025 BYD Shark 6’s instantaneous acceleration is excellent, we did notice an issue when baulked by a car turning off ahead just before a green traffic light. When the car ahead cleared, it was easy to quickly build speed in the BYD with an assertive throttle dab (from about 20km/h to 50km/h). However, after backing off the throttle and going for the brakes, Shark 6 was still accelerating for a fraction of a second. A bit disconcerting.

When towing the front suspension did feel a touch too soft, wallowing over the larger undulations, and at 100km/h the front end felt light, although as mentioned the combination did not sway at all.

The towbar shackle apertures are hard to get to, as they are under the towbar. With a trailer plugged in, you lose the active cruise control and lane departure safety systems, while your speed is limited to 110km/h. Whether these are serious issues when towing is debatable, but in any case BYD is working on a fix.

The other issue (which BYD says it will also fix) is that with a trailer plugged in, the vehicle adopts its standard driving mode, increasing petrol engine use to maintain battery charge.

So fuel consumption when towing is not anywhere near the headline 2.0L/100km (or 7.9L/100km claimed with the battery at 25 per cent or less). It’s more like around 17-18L/100km – although we’d like more testing time to establish just how the BYD performs towing duties over longer distances.

While high-teens fuel consumption is not bad considering that a V6 or V8 ICE equivalent (with similar performance to the BYD) would use this or more, the bigger issue in the Shark 6 becomes its fuel range. With its 60-litre fuel tank and our average of a combined 17.4L/100km, the BYD will have a worst-case fuel range of 294km (allowing a 50km safety margin).

You might be able to tow (using our fuel average) up to 344km using the last drop of fuel and hope you can limp to the next petrol station with remaining battery power.

You have probably read elsewhere what a significant vehicle the 2025 BYD Shark 6 is in the ute market. That much is true, with excellent value for money, extensive features and technology as well as excellent performance and a good perceived fit and finish.

For towing duties, however, the BYD Shark 6 has plenty of performance and is stable, but it’s hamstrung by a limited towing capacity (compared to the 3500kg benchmark) and, seemingly, a limited fuel range.

2025 BYD Shark 6 Premium at a glance:
Price: $57,900 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 135kW/260Nm (front electric motor: 170kW/310Nm; rear electric motor: 150kW/340Nm)
Combined output: 321kW/650Nm
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 29.58kWh LFP lithium-ion
Range: 80km (estimated)
Energy consumption: 15kWh/100km (estimated)
Claimed fuel consumption: 2.0L/100km (battery SOC above 25%); 7.9L/100km (battery SOC below 25%)
Fuel consumption on test: 17.4L/100km
CO2: 46g/km (estimate)
Safety rating: Five stars (ANCAP 2025)

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