"BYD Shark, Hybrid Power, Wild Spirit," BYD writes.

(Image credit: BYD)

BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) will make the world debut of its first pickup truck model, the BYD Shark, in Mexico in a week's time, and will be the first time in the last few years that it has allowed a new model to debut first in an overseas market.

The BYD Shark will make its debut in Mexico on May 14, ushering in the global era of new energy pickup trucks, the company said today on Weibo.

"BYD Shark, Hybrid Power, Wild Spirit," reads a poster by BYD on Weibo.

Having the BYD Shark debut in Mexico means the model will be aimed primarily at overseas markets, not its home market.

In China, pickup trucks are categorized as light vans and are subject to a lot of restrictions compared to regular passenger car models, including sedans, SUVs and MPVs.

This could be one of the reasons why BYD is only considering a pickup truck after launching dozens of passenger cars.

The BYD Shark is positioned as a mid-to-large size model, exceeding the size of the Toyota Hilux, according to information previously obtained by CnEVPost.

The model will be built on BYD's DMO platform, where O stands for off-road and DM stands for dual mode, according to information announced by BYD last month.

The NEV maker revealed the DMO platform when it unveiled the Fang Cheng Bao sub-brand on August 16, 2023 for the off-road market.

Among local automakers, Geely officially announced the Radar brand on July 12, 2022 along with its first model, the RD6 electric pickup truck. The model went on sale in China in October 2022, with first deliveries in late November 2022.

Radar has not done a lot of marketing for the RD6 in China and seems to be focusing its efforts on international markets, having launched the RD6 in Laos last November.

BYD to launch 1st new energy pickup truck for global market within this year