Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD has admitted that more than 1,200 customers in Australia were mistakenly sold 2025 model vehicles instead of the 2026 models they believed they had purchased.
The company confirmed that 1,265 customers were affected by the administrative error, which it attributed to incorrectly using the dates vehicles left the factory rather than their actual manufacturing dates.
Initially, BYD offered affected customers compensation of A$1,100. However, the company has since revised its response and will now provide full refunds to customers.
“It was an administrative error. There was no deceit,” BYD public relations director Paul Ellis told the ABC.
“We will offer customers a full refund. They can take that refund and, if they wish, enter into a new transaction to purchase another BYD vehicle,” Ellis said.
He added that the error does not affect the vehicles’ performance, safety, or warranty coverage.
Among those affected was Melbourne resident Zoheb Khan, who purchased a BYD Atto 3 for A$47,000 before being informed by the company’s customer service team that he had received the wrong model year.
“How can that administrative error be so big, with so many people and so many cars?” Khan told the ABC.
BYD has rapidly expanded its presence in the Australian market, emerging as a major competitor to other electric vehicle manufacturers, including Tesla.
