BYD Shark 6 vs Toyota Hilux: Which Pickup Should You Import in 2026?

Short answer: the BYD Shark 6 wins every number a customer reads in an advertisement and loses the two numbers a fleet buyer lives with. It makes 321 kW against the Hilux’s 150 kW, and it carries 790 kg against the Hilux’s 1,010 kg while towing 2,500 kg against 3,500 kg. If the truck is a work tool, the Hilux is still the tool. If the truck is transport plus a mobile 6.6 kW power supply, the Shark 6 does something the Hilux cannot do at any price.

This is the comparison we are asked for most often by buyers in West Africa and South America, and it is almost always framed the wrong way round — as “is the Chinese pickup as good as the Toyota yet?” That question has no useful answer. The two vehicles were engineered against different briefs, and the specification sheets say so plainly. Below, every figure comes from the manufacturers’ own published specification documents: BYD’s Australian specification sheet for the Shark 6 and Toyota’s technical specification sheet for the Hilux. Where the two makers measure something differently, we say so rather than putting the numbers in the same column and pretending they are comparable.

What each vehicle actually is

The BYD Shark 6 is a plug-in hybrid dual-cab pickup built at BYD’s plant in Zhengzhou, Henan. It launched in Mexico in May 2024, then Brazil, Australia and New Zealand later that year, the Philippines in March 2025, South Africa in April 2025 and Pakistan in July 2025. It is built in both left- and right-hand drive — Mexico and Brazil take the left-hand-drive car, Australia and South Africa the right-hand-drive one. Note the sequence: it went to export markets first and was only listed for the Chinese domestic market in 2026, under BYD’s Fangchengbao brand. That ordering has direct consequences for how you source one, which we come back to.

The Toyota Hilux in the eighth generation (model codes AN110, AN120, AN130) has been in production since May 2015 and is assembled in Thailand, South Africa, Argentina, Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Cambodia. It is a ladder-frame, front-engine truck offered in rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, with 2.4-litre and 2.8-litre turbo-diesel engines in most export markets and 2.7-litre and 4.0-litre petrol engines in some. Toyota revealed an all-new ninth-generation Hilux on 10 November 2025, and that changes the calculation in a way most comparisons have not caught up with yet.

Both names travel, which is worth checking before you order. The Hilux is sold as the Hilux Revo in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Pakistan — the same truck under a second badge, exactly the kind of naming trap we document in our guide to Chinese model names versus export names.

BYD Shark 6 vs Toyota Hilux: the specification table

The Hilux column below is the 2.8-litre diesel Double Cab, because that is the version a Shark 6 buyer is actually cross-shopping. Single-cab and 2.4-litre figures differ and are noted where they matter.

The number the brochure does not lead with: payload

The Shark 6 has a gross vehicle mass of 3,500 kg and a kerb weight of 2,710 kg. Subtract one from the other and the truck is legally allowed to carry 790 kg, and that figure includes the driver, the passengers and the fuel you put in after the weighbridge. Toyota’s Double Cab is rated at 3,210 kg gross against a kerb weight from 2,125 kg, giving a payload of 1,010 to 1,015 kg on the 2.8 and up to 1,030 kg on lighter versions.

That is a gap of roughly 220 to 240 kg — about three adult passengers, or ten bags of cement, or a day’s produce. And it exists despite the Shark being the physically larger vehicle: 132 mm longer, 116 mm wider, 175 mm more wheelbase, and a stated cargo volume of 1,450 L against a Hilux deck that measures 1,525 × 1,540 × 480 mm, which works out to roughly 1,127 L of geometric space. The Shark has the bigger box and the smaller load rating. That is not a design failure; it is arithmetic. A 29.58 kWh battery pack and two electric motors weigh what they weigh, and every kilogram of them comes out of the payload allowance.

Towing follows the same logic: 2,500 kg braked for the Shark, 3,500 kg for the Hilux across all four engine and transmission combinations. If your customers pull plant trailers, boats or water bowsers, that 1,000 kg is the end of the discussion.

This matters most in exactly the markets we ship to. Pickups sold into Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal are rarely lifestyle vehicles. They haul. A truck that is habitually loaded to its limit and beyond will find its limit sooner, and the consequences land on the suspension, the tyres and eventually your warranty conversation.

The angle nobody prints: 19.3 degrees

Here is the figure we have not seen in a single English-language comparison of these two trucks. BYD publishes an approach angle of 31° for the Shark 6 — better than the Hilux’s 29° — and then a departure angle of 19.3° against the Hilux’s 26°. The ramp-over angle is 17°.

Nearly seven degrees at the back end is a large amount on a rutted track, a steep drainage ditch or the lip of a loading ramp. The reason is visible from the side: the Shark is a longer truck on a longer wheelbase, and there is a battery pack under it. Approach angles impress people at a stand; departure angles are what actually catch, and what you hear about afterwards.

The ground-clearance line needs a caution, because the two makers are not measuring the same thing. BYD states 230 mm unladen. Toyota states 310 mm as minimum running ground clearance for the Double Cab (277 mm for the Single Cab, 289 mm for the Extra Cab). Those are different definitions and they are not directly comparable — but the direction of travel is consistent with the angles, and no reasonable reading of the two documents puts the Shark 6 ahead of a Hilux on broken ground. Wading depth, at least, is a genuine tie: both are rated at 700 mm.

Leaf springs versus double wishbones — and why the old technology may win

The Shark 6 runs double wishbones with coil springs at both ends. The Hilux runs double wishbones at the front and a leaf-spring live axle at the back. On a specification sheet this is the clearest technical win the Shark has: independent rear suspension rides better, handles better, and is why a Shark 6 drives more like a large SUV than a truck.

In a market with a thin parts network, it is also a liability, and it is worth being blunt about why. A leaf pack is a stack of steel plates. It is tolerant of chronic overloading, it fails gradually and audibly rather than suddenly, and it can be re-leafed, re-arched or fabricated by a competent spring shop in almost any large town in West Africa or the Andes. A broken rear control arm, bush or coil on an independent setup is a part number, and that part number has to be flown in from China. The same reasoning applies to the brakes: the Shark’s ventilated rear discs stop better, and the Hilux’s rear drums are cheaper, more tolerant of dust and mud, and stocked everywhere.

This is the recurring theme in Chinese-vehicle exports and we say it in every model guide we write, including our Geely Coolray guide for West Africa: the newer engineering is usually genuinely better, and it is only better if the support chain behind it exists in the country where the vehicle will live.

Fuel, range and the number that changes when the charger disappears

BYD publishes two fuel consumption figures for the Shark 6, and the difference between them is the whole story. With the battery between 25% and 100% state of charge, it returns 2.0 L/100 km. With the battery below 25% — that is, running as a conventional hybrid because nobody plugged it in — it returns 7.9 L/100 km. Combined range is quoted at 800 km, with about 100 km of that on electricity alone.

Whether your customer ever sees the 2.0 figure depends entirely on whether they charge. In a market with reliable overnight power and a home wall box, a plug-in hybrid pickup doing a 40 km daily round trip is an extraordinarily cheap vehicle to run. In a market where the grid is unreliable, the honest planning number is 7.9 L/100 km of petrol out of a 60-litre tank, or roughly 760 km between fills. The Hilux carries 80 litres of diesel.

Then there is the fuel itself. Across most of West Africa, Central Africa and much of South America the pickup segment runs on diesel: the pumps are there, the mechanics are diesel mechanics, and fleet fuel contracts are written in diesel. The Shark 6 needs petrol and a charging habit. That is not an argument against it — it is an argument for asking the question before the container is booked, in the same way we make importers check fuel grade before ordering turbocharged Chinese cars, as set out in our Zeekr 8X versus 9X comparison.

What the Shark 6 does that no Hilux does

Everything above reads against the Shark, so here is the case for it, and it is stronger than the horsepower headline.

V2L at 6.6 kW. The Shark 6 will run mains-voltage tools and equipment from its own battery at up to 6.6 kW. That is a silent, fuelled-once mobile generator with a 29.58 kWh tank, attached to a truck that was going to the site anyway. For a construction contractor, a borehole crew, an events business, a farm, a rural clinic or a telecoms maintenance team working where grid power is intermittent, this replaces a piece of equipment rather than adding one. No Hilux offers anything comparable, and in markets where a generator plus its fuel is a permanent line item, this is the argument that actually closes a fleet deal.

All-wheel drive with no transfer case to mishandle. The Shark’s two motors give permanent all-wheel drive with instant torque split. A part-time 4×4 Hilux relies on the driver selecting the right mode at the right time, which in a rental or crew-driven fleet is not a given.

Refinement and equipment at the price. Ventilated and heated front seats, a 360-degree camera, a 10.25-inch cluster, dual-zone climate, a full ADAS suite with blind-spot detection and lane keeping, an aluminium roof rack and a full-size spare are all standard on the specification sheet, along with 265/65 R18 Continental tyres. It is equipped like a passenger vehicle, because it was designed to be one that happens to have a tub.

The generation trap: what changed on 10 November 2025

Most comparisons of these two trucks were written against the eighth-generation Hilux. Toyota announced the all-new ninth generation on 10 November 2025, and any importer planning 2026 volume should factor it in.

The relevant published figures: the 48V hybrid version keeps a payload of up to one tonne and braked towing up to 3,500 kg, with production starting in spring 2026. The battery-electric Hilux, which rolls out from December 2025, uses a 59.2 kWh battery, dual e-axles with 205 N·m at the front and 268.6 N·m at the rear, and is quoted at approximately 715 kg of payload, 1,600 kg of towing and about 240 km of WLTP range. A hydrogen fuel-cell version is scheduled for 2028.

Read those two lines together and a useful conclusion appears. Toyota’s own electric pickup carries less than the BYD (715 kg against 790 kg) and tows far less (1,600 kg against 2,500 kg). The payload penalty in the Shark 6 is not a Chinese engineering shortfall — it is the physics of putting a traction battery in a one-tonne truck, and the market leader pays it too, harder. What Toyota is doing is keeping a 48V hybrid alongside it that preserves the tonne and the 3,500 kg tow. That is a product-line answer, not an engineering one, and it is available to BYD as well.

The practical implication for a dealer: the Shark 6 competes with a diesel Hilux today, and with a 48V hybrid Hilux from mid-2026. It comfortably beats the electric Hilux on both work numbers.

Supply: this is where the two trucks are least alike

A Hilux is available used, everywhere, in every condition, at every price. The Shark 6 has existed since May 2024, so a genuinely used one is at most two model years old and there is essentially no volume in the second-hand channel. In practice this means the Shark 6 is a new-vehicle order, not a used-vehicle purchase — which also makes it immune to the vehicle age limits that shape so much of our business, and expensive under duty regimes that tax new vehicles on invoice value. If age caps are the binding constraint in your market, this is a point in the Shark’s favour; if landed cost is, it is not. Our used-car import checklist and our vehicle inspection and condition report process both assume a used-vehicle flow that does not yet exist for this model.

Sourcing differs too, and this catches people out. Because the Shark 6 went to export markets before it went on sale in China, most of the volume that exists moves through BYD’s own national distributors rather than through the Chinese trade. If a supplier offers you a large, immediately available batch at a suspiciously flat price, ask which market the cars are registered for and see the documents — the reasoning is set out in who actually sells you a Chinese car and in our note on verifying a Chinese export company.

Shipping is the one place the Shark’s size shows up as money. At 5,457 mm long and 1,971 mm wide, it eats container and RoRo space, and at 2,710 kg it is a heavy unit. Our guide to how many cars fit in a container and our China to Africa shipping routes both apply; run the per-unit freight before you compare invoice prices, because the gap narrows.

So which one should you order?

If you want the honest one-line version: the Hilux is a work truck that has been made comfortable; the Shark 6 is a comfortable vehicle that has been made to work. Both statements are compliments. They just point at different customers.

How to order either one from China

We quote Chinese-built vehicles for dealers and fleet buyers on an order basis, with the specification confirmed in writing before any deposit — drivetrain, tyre size, fuel grade, homologation documents and the exact model-year build. If you are new to the process, start with our 2026 import guide for dealers, then look at what is currently moving in our new vehicle programme and our available stock. Buyers weighing a hybrid against a conventional vehicle may also want our notes on hybrids into Nigeria, the BYD Seal 5 DM-i and the BYD Han DM-i, all of which use the same plug-in hybrid logic in passenger form. For an overview of what else is worth shipping this year, see our 2026 export shortlist, and for the small end of the range, the BYD Seagull. Our services page sets out what we handle and what we do not, and you can reach us through the contact page.

Frequently asked questions

Is the BYD Shark 6 better than the Toyota Hilux?

Not as a single ranking. The Shark 6 has more than twice the system power (321 kW against 150 kW), a far quicker 0–100 km/h time of 5.7 seconds, independent rear suspension and 6.6 kW of vehicle-to-load power. The Hilux carries 220–240 kg more (1,010–1,015 kg against 790 kg), tows 1,000 kg more (3,500 kg against 2,500 kg), has a 26° departure angle against 19.3°, and has a parts and service network in every market we ship to. Pick according to duty cycle, not to the headline output.

How much can a BYD Shark 6 carry?

790 kg. BYD lists a gross vehicle mass of 3,500 kg and a kerb weight of 2,710 kg; the difference is the payload, and it includes occupants and fuel. That is less than a Toyota Hilux Double Cab, which is rated at 1,010–1,015 kg in 2.8-litre form and up to 1,030 kg in lighter versions.

Can the BYD Shark 6 tow 3.5 tonnes?

No. BYD’s published braked towing capacity for the Shark 6 is 2,500 kg, with 750 kg unbraked. The Toyota Hilux is rated at 3,500 kg braked on both the 2.4 and 2.8 diesel, in manual and automatic. If a customer specifically needs 3.5 tonnes, the Shark 6 does not meet the requirement.

What fuel does the BYD Shark 6 use, and does it need charging?

It is a plug-in hybrid running on petrol with a 60-litre tank and a 29.58 kWh battery. It works without ever being charged, but the economy changes completely: BYD quotes 2.0 L/100 km with the battery between 25% and 100% charge, and 7.9 L/100 km once the battery falls below 25%. Plan on the 7.9 figure in any market without dependable charging.

Is the BYD Shark 6 available in right-hand drive?

Yes. BYD sells it in right-hand-drive markets including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and in left-hand-drive markets including Mexico and Brazil. Confirm the steering position, homologation package and model year in writing on the order, because the equipment list is not identical across markets.

Can I buy a used BYD Shark 6?

Practically, no. The model launched in Mexico in May 2024, so the oldest units are barely two years old and almost none have reached the second-hand export channel. Treat the Shark 6 as a new-vehicle order. One consequence is useful: as a new build it is unaffected by the vehicle age limits that restrict used imports in many African and South American markets.

Should I wait for the new Toyota Hilux?

It depends on the powertrain you want. Toyota announced the ninth-generation Hilux on 10 November 2025. The battery-electric version began rolling out from December 2025 with a 59.2 kWh battery, roughly 715 kg of payload, 1,600 kg of towing and about 240 km of WLTP range — weaker on both work numbers than the Shark 6. The 48V hybrid, in production from spring 2026, keeps up to one tonne of payload and 3,500 kg of towing, and is the version worth waiting for if payload is what you buy on.

All specifications above are taken from the manufacturers’ published specification documents for the markets named and are quoted for comparison, not as an offer. Equipment, ratings and homologation vary by market and model year; the binding specification is the one written into your order confirmation.