BYD to adopt Aussie place names

The BYD Atto 3 electric SUV will soon be joined by some stablemates from the Chinese EV brand – but they won’t continue the Atto lineage, as had been expected.

The upcoming BYD Dolphin small electric hatchback and Tesla Model 3-rivalling BYD Seal electric sedan (pictured) will instead pick up new names as the fledgling brand looks to expand its regional footprint in 2023.

“The names will be released soonish and they’ll be most likely different names,” said Luke Todd, the CEO of BYD Automotive Australia in reference to the Atto 2 and Atto 4 nomenclature that each new model was expected to adopt.

He says BYD’s global model plans have expanded, in the process calling for a rethink on simply using ‘Atto’ as a prefix along with a number to roughly correlate to the car’s size.

Instead, although BYD has also trademarked Chinese model names including Dolphin, Seal, Carpe, Fari and Halo names in Australia, the company is looking at fresh names – some of which could have an Australian flavour.

“They’ll be Australian-led names, but most likely what we call in Australia will end the same in New Zealand and other regions in the Asia Pacific,” said Todd.

“The names we’re going to release are yet to be decided.”

Todd suggested the company may leverage the nautical themes followed by the Dolphin and Seal.

“We’ve thought about everything. There will be names and they’ll all have a special meaning. There’s this whole ocean theme behind these vehicles and everything will have a feeling, a meaning.”

It’s not clear whether the newly launched BYD Atto 3, which was officially launched in February and is now available to purchase via dealers as well as online, will also eventually adopt an Australian name.

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