China’s BYD readies EV Atto 3 to take on Tesla challenge in UAE

China’s BYD readies EV Atto 3 to take on Tesla challenge in UAE

Dubai: The biggest challenger to Tesla in the UAE’s electric vehicles space has landed – China’s BYD and its local partner Al-Futtaim have launched the Atto 3 SUV and will back that up with a further two EV models this year itself. And for good measure, launch two plug-in hybrid models too. On the Atto 3, BYD is going the distance with the range – 420 kilometers – and on the price, at Dh149,000. Bringing it under the Dh150,000 mark will be decisive in running up some early numbers on the sales side. The pricing makes it the most accessible EV model available through an official dealership in the UAE to date. Other EVs hew closer to Dh200,000 and much more, leaving a fairly open field for BYD to build up scale in this market. In the run up to the official launch, “We had more than 95,000 online visitors checking out the model, more than 3,000 registered leads and 153 bookings,” said Hasan Nergiz, Managing Director, Al-Futtaim Electric Mobility Company, a newly created entity that oversees all of Al-Futtaim’s expanding interests in the EV space (including in the charging category). “All this even before they had even seen the