Ambitious targets, if achieved, would see BYD’s first wagon in Australia outsell the next most popular example of the body style by more than five-to-one.
BYD is hoping its new Seal 6 mid-size car will renew interest in the wagon body style, alongside offering a cheaper – yet plug-in hybrid – rival to the Toyota Camry sedan.
It has set bold targets that, if achieved, would see a brand that didn’t exist in Australia four years ago sell the country’s most popular wagon.
The Seal 6 Touring, priced from $39,990 plus on-road costs, is the least expensive wagon on sale in Australia, and one of the few still available without a premium badge.
It is not expected to outsell SUVs, but BYD forecasts it will sell 500 Seal 6s a month – split 50:50 between the wagon and sedan.
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Deliveries of 250 Seal 6 Tourings a month equates to 3000 examples annually – more than every other wagon on sale last year combined (2525), as classified by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), which considers the Subaru Outback an SUV.
The country’s best-selling wagon is the Skoda Octavia, which reported 544 deliveries in 2025, down from 662 in 2024.
If BYD hits its target, it will be the highest sales reported by a wagon in Australia since 5501 locally-produced Holden Commodore Sportwagons rolled out of dealers in 2017 – and the highest sales for an imported wagon since 2013.
“We think there’s good opportunity for it. I think we can make wagons cool again,” BYD Australia chief operating officer Stephen Collins told Drive.
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“I think the body style, you know, does suit a lot of people who aren’t necessarily after an SUV but … in these times. I think its range, its efficiency, its packaging, its practicality.
“I think it’s a really, really good family car and, you know, I think there’s good opportunity for it. I’d be pretty proud if we could make wagons cool again.”
He said wagon and SUV customers are “similar”, but believes the Seal 6 will appeal to “family customers who don’t necessarily want an SUV”.
“We’ll have a have a sedan and a wagon, of course. I’d be thinking that we should be able to do around 500 a month once it gets established, and that makes it an important car for us in our line-up,” said Collins.
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“I think it’s probably going to be around 50:50 between the two. The market will decide and we’ll adjust production if we need to, but we think that both the sedan and the wagon just provide a really good value proposition.”
The Seal 6 is the 11th model in the BYD Australia range, six of which commenced deliveries in the past 18 months.
“It’s about filling niches that are there for us. It’s [BYD’s] ambition to have a car for all Australians,” Paul Ellis, BYD Australia public relations director, told Drive.
“And I think what we’ve shown over the last year is the expansion of our line-up has been pretty rapid, and we want to provide something for everyone.
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“Not everything’s going to be a 2000 a month car, but that’s okay. I think what what Atto 1 has done, Atto 2 has now is really established itself as a really good volume SUV for us. So yeah, lots of opportunities.”
While the Touring wagon is sold in top-of-the-range Premium specification, with a longer list of standard features, the sedan is offered only in entry-level Essential trim.
It lowers its price to $34,990 before on-road costs, $5000 less than the wagon – as well as the cheapest Toyota Camry, which is a conventional hybrid that can’t be plugged in for a long electric-only driving range.
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Three in five Toyota Camrys sold last year left showrooms under an ABN, or were headed for a rental-car fleet – a major market for BYD to capture.
“Fleet is a big part of our current and future strategy. We’re working on it. We’re improving every month. Whether it’s Seal 6 or Atto 1 or Shark, fleet’s important; we’re working hard on that,” said Collins.
BYD’s targets leave plenty of room to the Toyota Camry, which recorded 9860 sales last year in a single sedan body style, equivalent to an average of 820 cars per month.
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It is the country’s best-selling sedan, ahead of the Tesla Model 3 (6617) and BYD’s own Seal (3784) electric cars.
While they share a name, the Seal and Seal 6 are unrelated vehicles, the former only an electric vehicle, and the latter strictly a plug-in hybrid in regions outside China.
BYD has been spotted testing the electric Seal 07 in Australia, another member of the Seal sedan line-up in China that could be destined for export markets.
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