Cheapest the BYD Dolphin has ever been. One of the best value EVs under $30000, cheaper than the MG4 Urban and even BYD's own tiny 4 seater Atto 1 Premium. ~$7000 cheaper than a similar sized Toyota Corolla.
340km WLTP range.
Please note the discrepancy in the offer's key dates. — Mod:
32 k for a base yaris
And to think it was ½ that price just two generations back.
What year, and what price?
@Wolfenstein98k: 2019 Corolla sedan paid $22k all up. Online pricing suggests that's held it's value WELL, to put it mildly.
Yep, I bought a Brand new Yaris in 2012 for $16000. Loved that thing
My 2020/21 Yaris was ~18k, the pricing now is just ridiculous.
Does it have hybrid, sensors, abs, ancap, adfas, cruise control, min wage $31,536.96 for that period. Now it's 50k
That's actually insane
Finally.
I mean that's definitely the play here. These companies aren't cutting prices because they love the consumer - they're buying market share and displacing as many competitors as possible.
They are also fighting all the ev cars that ate around too .. lots of competition for all makers now, borh new and old.
Sounds like good competition. Back in the ICE days I didn't have much of a choice, now is a buffet of choice in the pov price bracket.
its a race to the bottom. gonna be really interesting to see which legacy auto makers manage to weather the onslaught.
@ProlapsedHeinous: Fiat is one I think on thin ice. FIA is gouging F1 fans in FIFA style ways to prop up themselves up in another notch on the rising flood marker.
Wanted to go this year - $700 for 4 day pass.
Then the many companies we now HAVE will be swallowed up and incorporated into the biggest companies (BYD, GWM) until they own all the competition and then start setting their own prices to claw their money back oncs they have a captive market ($2k for apple phones e.g).
It may be true. But the key point is this is what the price should be, or even less. The RRP in China for these cars are even a fraction of this amazing price.
Isn't that the point of competition in free market economies? Or perhaps you prefer less choice and higher prices?
"Improvise, adapt, overcome"
.."so I didn't listen and wondered why I've lost customers" - Toyota probably.
I dont know about that but the wait for a new Rav 4 is still several months and the resale value is crazy - like iPhones.
I'd rather an Ex-Peng G6 anyway. You seen those beasts? Managed to go 0-100 in about 2 seconds; the official site downplays the numbers plus they offer 7+ year warranty on the battery etc so there's no real risks.
@John Doh: 100%
over 3 years and I have used free excess solar 99% of the time. I use to pay $60 evey 2 weeks on fuel (that would be closer to $100 now)..
@donman92: My mate has a Byd Sealion 7. Acceleration is phenomenal. He loved the performance it until he got his second speeding fine.
@donman92: Not that I am a fan of BYD (at this point, I am neutral), but new car brands will likely thin out based on sales. If they pull out of Aus, their 7+ year warranty will not mean much. With BYD's increasing market share, there is some safety in that.
@StingyGeek: You have the ACL behind you
Every new manufacturer in Australia has to provide the warranties and parts required to begin operations
The government won't allow another great wall episode..
Is there still such a long wait? Our local toyota dealer has the same rav4 sitting in their yards for weeks before i see tjem gone (i walk our dog past it every day)
@PVA: Maybe its reduced now due to more stocks getting secured - https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/slashed-rav4-w…
The reason you see one standing is probably because no one wants that colour/configuration.
@John Doh: Maybe. But theres multiple cars models and colour to choose from.
It might be that they've caught up with orders now. With so much choice in cars now they dont want to have people wait too long or they may look elsewhere.
A friend got a Hyundai Tucson hybrid, a month ago, instead of a rav4. He took both for a test but simply didn't like the look of the rav4 (I think the Rav4 looks heaps better than the Hyundai myself). He didn't mention about a delay for delivery.. Hyundai was 4 weeks.
Say me waiting since I preordered in April for a Mazda cx6e .. October delivery.
what about resale value of gpu?
Lol check the sales.. Toyota still on top
By a long way too. Although Australia are now buying more cars from China than Japan. Mazda, Subaru and Nissan are plummeting.
Japanese corporations are notoriously slow to adapt to change. Some companies still haven't properly digitized, use old and outdated data systems and insist on using their complex three alphabet Kanji system of communication. Also check out the story of Carlos Ghosn on YouTube about his time as Nissan ceo after saving other big megacorps and how it ended up with him in jail.
Most of the main sales numbers include businesses which would skew the numbers compared to consumer only
Sure. Do you think they're going to stay there?
Tbh neither the Corolla nor Yaris are in the top 25 sold car club. Fleet sales have preferred the Rav now for years.
I'd think a lot of those Corolla and Yaris sales are propped up with rental fleet sales - lots of them and frequent turnover
Toyota is dead. BYD will take rover very soon
thanks scoob
I keep telling people that Toyota's days as a leader are nearly over but the Hilux and Camry owners won't face it
Yup, Toyota the Nokia of the car industry. The writing is on the wall with their denial, like most jap automakers, to meet the market and get serious about EV's. They were once purchased as a vanilla buy for reliability and resale, but now priced out for most. Cheaper and better alternatives from China are widely available, even better value if you have solar. When government fleet bypass Toyota, the ship will be sunk. Our local government has already started buying BYD.
They just need 9 more years
Toyota Australia expects hydrogen to replace diesel in the longer term, with the company’s head of sales and marketing tipping the change to come beyond 2035.
Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia’s vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations, told journalists including CarExpert that diesel will remain important this decade, but not indefinitely.
“Diesel’s not going to go anytime in the next decade, but beyond that – I think hydrogen will take over diesel,” Hanley said.
https://drivinghydrogen.com/2025/09/29/toyota-hydrogen-will-…
lol
I do expect FCEVs to partially replace diesel long-term in commercial vehicles (look at the success with hydrogen buses) but I seriously, seriously doubt that will translate into passenger cars (the physics and cost don't line up), which will be almost entirely BEVs and EREVs in 2035.
Even if FCEV cars somehow do become popular in 2035, it'll be too late for Toyota anyway. 10 years ago, Hyundai-Kia wasn't anything special. Now they're the second biggest manufacturer of cars for Australia. BYD's on track to make that same level of growth in a couple of years.
@BestTechAdvisor: There are a few thousand hydrogen buses, hardly a success. The fuel is made from fossil fuel, so not really green either. Cheap green hydrogen has been "just around the corner" for ages. It is more marketing/experiment. Compare with the adoption of EV buses and trucks.
Hydrogen just has too many issues to resolve before it can be mainstream, while batteries keep getting better and cheaper. Green hydrogen, hydrogen supply chain, hydrogen embrittlement.
There are a few thousand hydrogen buses, hardly a success.
The success is in their performance, not in their uptake.
The fuel is made from fossil fuel, so not really green either. Cheap green hydrogen has been "just around the corner" for ages. It is more marketing/experiment.
This is the same argument that people made about EVs being charged on fossil fuels. It really depends on how the infrastructure is created. If we build out enough renewables to replace fossil fuels, then the problem becomes energy storage, and hydrogen can be a part of the solution.
Compare with the adoption of EV buses and trucks.
EV's have been around for a century and they're only just now being adopted for buses and trucks, and they're still not competing with diesel.
Hydrogen just has too many issues to resolve before it can be mainstream, while batteries keep getting better and cheaper. Green hydrogen, hydrogen supply chain, hydrogen embrittlement.
I heard all this when I was talking about EV's in the 2010's. I heard all this just a couple years ago. It's only the Iran + Ukraine war that has forced the majority people to finally acknowledge electricity is the future for passenger cars.
But, it is important to note I'm not talking about passenger cars. There are still problems for BEVs in many usecases. Let's use an extreme example: tanks.
Happy to be wrong though. I don't really have a horse in the race. It's clear that betting on MHEVs and FCEVs was the wrong choice for Toyota, that much is obvious.
The success is in their performance, not in their uptake.
There performance is fine but nothing impressive. ROI is non-existent and they have high emissions anyway.
This is the same argument that people made about EVs being charged on fossil fuels.
Not really. It is simple and cheap to charge a car with green energy. It is currently very expensive to create green hydrogen.
then the problem becomes energy storage
Batteries are miles ahead of hydrogen storage. Hydrogen storage is also by it's nature very inefficient due to compression losses, leakage, conversion to electricity. Not to mention the cost of tank maintenance and replacement due to embrittlement.
EV's have been around for a century
Hydrogen fuel cells have been around since 1839. https://fuelcellsworks.com/knowledge/history . Good battery tech was a requirement for mass EV adoption.
Cheap green hydrogen will be a reality one day, but putting it in cars, buses, trucks just doesn't make sense.
Battery trucks are already in production and doing Melb-Sydney already. It’s infinitely easier to get a cable of electricity or solar battery array to regional areas once than hydrogen or diesel refueling trucks every week.
Logistics makes EVs the only viable solution here, it’s just that we haven’t built out infrastructure to fully satisfy demand.
It's tragic that Toyota is… killing itself for no reason. The Prius was a fantastic car. And they know how to make extremely reliable vehicles, it's not just anecdotal, the statistics back it up.
Does anyone have any insight into their motivation? What's the point of a big company just giving up and destroying themselves? How does it benefit them? It's not like they're not aware of electric cars.
At this point I think it might be too late for them not to become the next Blockbuster, Nokia, or Blackberry. The turnaround would have to be superhuman.
I have a feeling Toyota Australia would be buggered if it wasn't for fleet sales
Toyota pioneered small, constant improvements to products and processes. this formed the basis for their reliability and affordability.
this tactic has prevented them from making any significant jumps in technology or design and they have been overtaken by more ambitious manufacturers willing to wipe the slate clean and design from the ground up.
This is traditionally the path the French car makers such as Citroen took too, however, they were fearless when it came to full re-designs, quite often with the 'blank page' approach between generations. So a car might exist for decades with developing improvements each year but them boom completely new design one day and the process started over.
Toyota's big markets are the USA and Japan = up to 40% of their sales… Australia is only around 2%…
Japan is a Hybrid market… USA is an ICE market but Toyota's sales of Hybrids are also very strong there…
are we ignoring their third largest market, china?
@Harrash: No, was just commenting on why Toyota has such a strong ICE/hybrid focus - it's because that's what their 2 main markets demand..
Toyota sales are slumping in China but it's still a big market for them… They are in partnerships with GAC and FAW..
Like Nokia or Blackberry or Kodak, they were/are too caught up in their own supply chain, management committees, and in their own belief system.
Depreciation Rate: EV technology advances quickly, which generally leads to higher depreciation rates for entry-level electric cars
Toyota Equity: Popular Toyota models (Corolla, RAV4, Camry) retain exceptional secondhand value
Unproven Mechanical Durability: Toyota has built a multi-decade reputation for durability and bulletproof hybrid powertrains
BYD individual components (e.g., suspension parts, lights, touchscreen units) often carry shorter warranty periods compared to Toyota’s uniform coverage.
Choose Toyota if: You prioritize long-term durability, easy resale value, simpler physical controls, and effortless servicing anywhere in Australia
Depreciation rates are often misleading. If you buy a Toyota for $60K and sell it in 10 years for $35K it's lost 40% of its value. If you were to buy an equivalent Chinese car for $35K and sell it in 10 years for $5K it's lost 85% of its value.
BUT, the cash you've actually lost is $25,000 on the Toyota. And you've tied up, or even worse borrowed, an additional $25K buying the Toyota over the Chinese car. So essentially, you've either paid out an additional $5K or so in interest over the 3-5 years you were paying back the extra $25K or you've missed out on 10 years' return on investing or saving it. Either way, you've net-net lost exactly the same number of actual dollars on each car; $30,000. In other words, the percentage depreciation is misleading.
That's based on the assumption that people will generally want petrol cars ongoing.
The world is rapidly changing
I honestly don't get the Australian obsession with Toyota. Yes, they're reliable but so are lots of cars. They're also incredibly boring, bland and uninspiring cars that are hugely overpriced. I'll use a RAV4 as an example. It's inoffensive, not particularly bad at anything and not particularly good at anything. It won't put a smile on your face each time you get in it, not will it make you tear your hair out in exasperation. It's just a really bland, run of the mill mid sized SUV. So why is it the best part of $60K for anything with a half decent spec? And why is that same car worth $40K in 10 years? There's no justification to any of it, other than the average Australian thinks it's intrinsically worth more because it's a Toyota.
It's the same in the USA with Toyota and Lexus… On the resale - Might have something to do with the expectation and track record of a well maintained 10 year old Toyota will still run perfectly… Mechanically built to last many hundreds of thousands of km's… So people are confident in buying used..
Huge dealership network everywhere and also parts even outside of OEM widely available… Easy and cost effective to maintain or repair by most mechanics or even DIY..
Maybe Toyota (and other importers) could stop price gouging and cut back on the 100 or more percent markup on their vehicles from the landed drive off the dock cost in Australia including all shipping and taxes and the dealer retail list prices.
That is why Toyota can offer things like 20-25 percent (or more) discount to fleet/government buyers.
ee-ee-ee power.
I choo-choo-choose you.
BYD going in for the kill with these price cuts.
This or Atto 1 for $20k?
Why not both
I think this if it is your main car, but under $20k atto is the perfect second car.
Put the $9k saving towards the mortgage.
or solar
If you are single and need one car, probably Dolphin (or wait for Atto 1 Premium price drop).
Second “kids to school, get to work” car? Atto 1.
The atto 1 premium is about the same price with a similar drivetrain but smaller size.
so you'd get the dolphin if you need that, otherwise the $20k one is for those that only intend to do about 100-150km a day driving.
Atto 1 would be a perfect little commuter for around town..
Hold, will drop another 5k in couple months.
Why?
the Chinese brands are competing each other. their strategy is always "kill the Opponent "
Slashing prices just to squeeze out the competition
Sounds like amazon
I don't know, Chinese government seems to be stopping this source. Wouldn't surprise me if BYD is doing some last cuts before their government steps in.
they almost sound like evil capitalists
There's no way. There's not another 5k to squeeze at the price
this car is selling between 17k-20k in China.
100% they can bring this down to kill other brand.
You forgot about our high import tax, shipping and on-road costs. I mean yeah they might sell at a loss if they wanted to but that strategy usually works for cheap consumables when they first launch not cars.
@Save 50 Cent: There is zero import tax on chinese ev imports. For other cars it is only 5%. Australia has no local auto or ev industry to protect.
@SpendMoreNow: Oh didn’t expect that from our government.. that is nice.. but i’m sure they will be some kind of fee like port fee or whatever..
Also local transport cost and dealer overheads are much more in Australia than China.
@Big L: To be fair, there are a lot of extra costs involved in the import… switching to rhd, extra safety equipment, freight & quarantine.
@Save 50 Cent: Of course there are shipping costs, but BYD has its own ship fleet so are getting things as efficient as possible.
The RORO ships avoid most of the wharfie mafia costs since they do their own unloading, not containers. And with modern EV autonomous driving are possibly even driving themselves off the ships.
If you wilfully ignore the import and duties, Australia is still a premium market, so you can still make a profit.
@Bedgrub: OMG great, just great!!
Now Albozo has read your comment, he will task Dim Jim to look at taxing it!!
That's the only argument the ICE crowd has theses days?
Then here's the reality check for you: an amazing deal like this hasn't been around since the MG4 (non urban) was advertised at $31k quite exactly 2 years ago.
In the meantime, since buying that one, my partner has saved $6k on petrol and another $1k on service costs.
No point waiting. With these deals BYD has set prices so good that any additional drops will be tinkering at the margins, worth less than the savings you get from switching to EV in the meantime.
Is your partner sterile yet?
BYD is doing a price war with BYD.
Amazing value.
In China, BYD, GEELY, LEAPMOTOR all these brands are very competitive in pricing.
Not just this car, MGS6 EV demo is around $40K (77kwh nmc battery), IM6 demo is $50kish (75kwh)
These are all crazy price if looked at the car. It's just the start.
Those cars are NOT the same. Any car/motorbike selling here have to abey ADR. What we get here are much much better as for minimum qualify.
So no, not gonna get much cheaper at 20k or 28k respectively.
Toyota's dream market share coming to a close.