Alternate title: How existing BYD Atto 3 owners just lost around RM 30,000 with just one announcement.
So a little while ago, BYD had somewhat surprisingly announced that it has launched a new variant of its Atto 3 for 2025, dubbed the Ultra. And while this ain’t to be the big facelift that was recently launched in its home market, the Chinese automaker had nevertheless made one big tweak to what is ostensively the same e-SUV it sold in 2024 over here: it’s price.
And without wanting to beat around the bush too much here too, this new sole Ultra variant Atto 3 is now available locally for just RM 123,800. Or to put it in another sense, exactly the same as Proton’s top-end e.MAS 7!
What more is that BYD is also offering the first 1,000 buyers of this new Atto 3 Ultra an additional RM5,000 rebate, bringing the starting price down to RM118,800. A free AC wallbox charger worth RM 3,699, a vehicle-to-load (V2L) adapter worth RM 988 and a Type 2 charging cable worth RM1,796 has also been thrown in as well, to further sweeten what is an already sweet deal.
Now of course, this latest price slash is undoubtably an attempt by BYD to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Proton. Also for what it’s worth too, prospective Atto 3 buyers who held out this long are now pretty much rewarded for their patience with a near-RM 40,000 discount on their e-SUV.
BUT… on that same note, what the Ultra also represents is an ultra big slap in the face to existing Atto 3 owners. Such is as their current cars have effectively seen nearly RM 30,000 of their value wiped out in just one afternoon on the used market, through absolutely no fault of their own!
Just days before this announcement for instance, used Atto 3s were generally commanding between RM 100,000 – 120,000 on the market. But now those very same cars are being relisted for just RM 85,000 – 95,000.
Ouch…
Now of course, most Atto 3 owners probably expected their EVs to depreciate over time, but seeing their car’s value drop by half an Axia’s worth in an instant is still likely to be a very tough pill to swallow.
With BYD seemingly providing no financial recourse to these early adopters too — who helped establish what was (and still is) a fledgling brand in Malaysia — it is really hard not to empathise with these people who are likely (and rather significantly) upside down on their loans right now.
And really, all this is made most unbearably galling when remembering that EV ownership was widely marketed as a money-saving move, due to their lower running expenses in the first place!
In an attempt to defend the rather indefensible however, it is worth noting here that while this Atto 3 price cut is one of the largest in recent memory, BYD is far from the only automaker to have done so lately. In fact, the EV price war has been quietly brewing in the background over here for quite some time now, and many buyers have been burnt as a result.
To be entirely frank too, with what seems like an endless stream of promotions at BYD, it’s hard to believe that anyone ever paid full price for their Atto 3 in the first place. So while the financial damage owners are facing from this announcement is undoubtedly severe, it may not be as catastrophic as the list price-to-list price slash suggests.
Also, while undeniably painful for owners, the Atto 3 is not the first EV in Malaysia that is to suffer from such steep depreciation. Just take a look at the Hyundai IONIQ series, with both the 5 and 6 having lost nearly half their value in just two short years too…
Then again though, while this drastic price slash from BYD may provide a short term boom for its sales, this move may be rather short-sighted for the company. Such is because the wider consequence of this race to the bottom in pricing absolutely shatters consumer confidence in buying a new EV.
Who would really want to buy a new EV now, knowing that another massive price cut could be just around the corner?
Incidentally too, what this latest whopping price decrease of the Atto 3 just did is pull back the curtain on how much profit automakers are currently making off new car buyers over here. We all pretty much knew that EVs — especially those from China — carry HUGE markups over here compared to their home markets. But with BYD managing to slash the Atto 3’s list price by some 20% and still likely turn a profit, this really is just plainly points out the inconvenient truth that Malaysians are being shafted well and good in terms of new car pricing over here…
