When buying a car, there are two things Americans seem to prize above all else: Squared-off looks and a “commanding seating position.” Yet, with car prices creeping up every day, low-cost options would help get more folks into newer vehicles — and invested in the EV transition. If only there were a cheap, boxy, compact EV crossover that Americans could get their hands on.
That crossover does exist: It’s the BYD Yuan UP, the newly-revealed little sibling to the Atto 3. The crossover isn’t coming stateside — at least not that anyone’s revealed thus far — but it should. It’s got the looks and the height that we crave over here, with a price that’s below any EV we know: It’s estimated to start below $20,000, perhaps as low as $14,000.
BYD revealed the Yuan UP in full on Weibo, without stating any in-the-weeds specs on the car. We know it’s a crossover, and we know it’s small — the Weibo caption on the images mentioned the Chinese A0 vehicle class, which carries a wheelbase less than 7.5 feet. We don’t know details like horsepower, torque, or range, but we know the parts that are important here in the States: Cute lil crossover with squared-off corners and a tall driver’s seat.
These are the cars we really need if EVs are going to take off in the States: Accessible, desirable vehicles that don’t cost an arm and a leg. I genuinely believe that a little car like this would go gangbusters over here, where folks can’t get enough of their CH-Rs and HR-Vs. Give it a few years on the market, for the initial shock of “Chinese automaker” to wear off, and this little BYD would do numbers in no time.
