China-made BYD Shark pickup is a predator circling global truck market

DETROIT — There’s a Shark circling one of the greatest profit pools for American automakers globally, as Chinese automaker BYD Auto expands its reach and product portfolio with a pickup truck.

Without the vehicle’s branding badge, the BYD Shark could pass as an American-made product. In many ways, it looks like a smaller pickup from Ford Motor. The China-made truck features uncanny exterior resemblances to a Ford Explorer mixed with the popular F-150 — part of the Ford brand’s best-selling truck lineup in the U.S. for 48 years.

Much like BYD’s Seagull — a small all-electric hatchback that starts at just 69,800 yuan (or less than $10,000) — there’s fear among global automakers that Chinese rivals like the Warren Buffett-backed BYD could flood their markets, undercutting domestic production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their own auto industries.

BYD has not announced plans to sell the Shark in the U.S., but it has entered countries where General Motors, Ford and Toyota Motor sell pickup trucks, including Australia, Brazil and Mexico.

In the U.S., pickup trucks are the bread-and-butter vehicles for the Detroit automakers, combining for millions of units of sales annually. They’ve also become increasingly important for Toyota in the U.S. and globally.

“When you consider the importance, from a revenue perspective, that these products bring to manufacturers, it’s the franchise,” said Terry Woychowski, president of automotive at Caresoft Global who formerly was a chief engineer of GM’s full-size trucks. “There’s been a lot of interest in this vehicle because of the market.”

Caresoft, an engineering benchmarking and consulting firm, has torn down and examined roughly 40 China-built EVs from the likes of BYD, Nio and others.

The Michigan-based company digitally and physically analyzes every part of a vehicle, from bolts and latches to seats, motors and battery casings. It then determines how its clients — mainly automakers and suppliers — can improve efficiencies and cut costs in their products.

Automakers such as Ford and Toyota that rely heavily on sales of smaller pickup trucks globally have taken notice of the BYD Shark.

“It’s a great product. It’s sold well. They’re trying to sell in high volume in Mexico, but it’s also being localized in Thailand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said when asked by CNBC earlier this month about the BYD Shark. “If we want to be a global player in pickups, like we are now, we have to compete.”

While Ford’s F-150 reigns supreme in the U.S., Toyota’s Hilux has been the top-selling truck outside of North America for many years. Toyota has sold 19.8 million Hilux trucks since its introduction in 1968, including a record of 851,000 units in 2022.

When asked about Chinese competitors earlier this month, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said the…