BYD has cut the price of its Dolphin hatchback in Australia to A$28,888 ($20,600) drive-away, its second base-grade discount in a week, on a car whose Chinese counterpart received an update nine months ago that has not reached Australian showrooms.
The offer, first reported by The Driven, applies to the entry Dolphin Essential, which listed at A$29,990 ($21,400) before on-road costs and reached about A$33,300 ($23,700) drive-away in New South Wales.
The saving runs from roughly A$2,900 to A$4,400 depending on the state, and the terms are tight: orders between September 15 and December 15, delivery by December 31.
It follows the Atto 1 Essential’s cut to A$19,990 ($14,300) drive-away on September 15, from A$23,990 ($17,100) before on-roads, which made an electric car the joint-cheapest new vehicle in Australia for the first time.
BYD dealer offer pages list that campaign on the same terms as the Dolphin’s, with orders by December 15 and delivery by the year end.
Australia is not the only market where BYD is discounting the same family. In Spain, the Dolphin Surf, the European name for the Seagull, is priced at €12,605 after BYD tripled its own discount.
The push abroad is deliberate.
BYD’s exports set a fifth consecutive monthly record in August while China sales fell 16%, and the company has raised its overseas target for the year and is aiming past 2.5 million in 2027.
First-half net profit fell 20.5% to 12.33 billion yuan ($1.84 billion), which is the margin backdrop against which a 26% cut on the cheapest car in the range is being made.
What A$28,888 Buys
The Dolphin Essential pairs a 70 kW, 180 Nm front motor with a 44.9 kWh Blade lithium iron phosphate battery for 340 km on the WLTP cycle, with 7 kW AC and 60 kW DC charging.
The Premium grade, untouched by the offer, has a 150 kW motor, a 60.48 kWh pack, 427 km WLTP and 80 kW DC charging at A$36,990 ($26,400) before on-roads, or above A$40,000 ($28,500) drive-away in New South Wales, putting more than A$11,000 between the two grades at the point of sale.
Both Dolphin grades, and both Atto 1 grades, are separately offered with a 5% novated-lease discount for orders placed in September and delivered by October 31.
Both cuts, in other words, apply only to the base cars, the ones most exposed to the Geely EX2, which arrived in July with five seats and a starting price of A$26,490 ($18,900), and to the MG4 Urban.
Two Offers That Outlast the Rest
The Dolphin and Atto 1 campaigns stand apart from everything else BYD is running in Australia this month.
Dealer offer pages show drive-away pricing on the Sealion 8 Dynamic FWD at A$56,990 ($40,600), the Sealion 7 Premium at A$54,990 ($39,200) and the Shark 6 Premium and Dynamic cab-chassis at A$57,900 ($41,300), alongside A$2,000 ($1,400) cashback on the Sealion 8 all-wheel-drive grades and A$2,000 to A$3,000 accessory credits on the Atto 2 Premium and Shark 6 Dynamic cab-chassis.
Every one of those offers closes on September 30 with delivery by October 31.
Only the two base-grade hatchbacks carry a December 15 order deadline and a December 31 delivery cut-off. They are the only BYD offers in Australia written to run to the end of the year, and the only ones on models whose Chinese versions have since been replaced or updated.
What BYD Australia Says
Stephen Collins, chief of BYD in Australia, said on Sunday the Atto 1 cut was part of a campaign to lift the model’s sales and would not start a price war, in an interview reported as Beijing warned Chinese carmakers against aggressive overseas discounting.
The Dolphin has found more than 3,000 Australian buyers in the first eight months of the year, and the Atto 1 sits third in the micro and light segments with 3,838 sales, behind the MG 3 and Kia Picanto and, since July, behind the EX2 month by month.
BYD itself was Australia’s second-best-selling brand in August at 8,231 vehicles on VFACTS, up 68.8%, in a month when fully electric vehicles took a record 24.9% of the market.
The company says it has launched eight models or major variants since October and will reach ten by next month with the Atto 2 plug-in hybrid and the M9 people mover, and is opening a dealership a week toward 150 by year-end.
What China Already Has
The cuts land on the two BYD models whose Chinese versions have moved furthest ahead of what Australia sells.
The Dolphin was updated in China in December 2025 with revised styling, faster charging and improved driver assistance, changes BYD described at the time as China-only. The Australian car retains the earlier specification.
The Atto 1 is the Seagull, and the gap there is wider. China’s 2026 Seagull, launched on May 11 at 69,900 to 97,900 yuan ($10,400 to $14,600), added new colours, a second wiper and an optional LiDAR with BYD’s God’s Eye B urban driver-assistance system, the first in its segment.
The Australian Atto 1 Essential, with a 30 kWh battery without active cooling, a 65 kW motor and 220 km on WLTP, predates that update.
Behind the facelift is a replacement.
A new-generation Seagull filed with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in July grows from 3,780 to 4,205 mm long and from four seats to five, with a 95 kW motor and 29.99 or 39.23 kWh packs rated at 320 and 420 km on the CLTC cycle.
BYD’s Ocean Network General Manager Zhang Zhuo confirmed at the Chengdu show in August that it launches in China this year, and Chinese coverage expects a fourth-quarter debut with deliveries in early 2027. It is sized between today’s Seagull and the Dolphin.
BYD Australia has announced neither model for the local market, and Collins did not link the cuts to product timing.
The arrival of an updated version would nonetheless justify the discounts on their own terms, since a distributor with a newer specification months away is under pressure to clear the older cars before it announces the replacement and begins deliveries.
BYD’s export cadence on Ocean-series updates has run six to twelve months behind China, and the December 31 delivery cut-off on the Dolphin offer is the deadline a distributor sets when it knows what the next model year looks like.
