
BYD seem to have fixed the Shark 6 traction control issues
Last year I tested a pre-production Shark 6, and found the brake traction control to be, well, terrible. It was slow acting, and when it did kick in, ineffective. Even worse the car didn’t distribute torque front/rear effectively, allowing one wheel without traction to spin whilst not sending torque (drive) to the three on the ground. It even massively spun up wheels and smoked tyres.
However, that was a pre-production car, and the vehicles being delivered now are different, definitely in software and possibly also in hardware. BYD have, to their credit, got right onto the problem and as you can see in the video, it looks like they’ve fixed at least the brake traction side of things. I know that area very well, and the car couldn’t have done what you see it doing without good traction control calibration. I don’t think it’s quite Toyota or Land Rover level “insanely good”, but it doesn’t need to be, it’s still above-average and more than does the job.
What does this mean about overall capability? Well, fixing the brake traction control is a huge start and that was definitely the car’s #1 offroad problem based on my testing.
I also hear the hill descent control has been changed so it’s not fixed to 8km/h, another improvement although one that should have been there from the start. I’m also still wondering how it goes loaded on really steep hills, as in 25-30 degrees or more but to be fair that’s outside the use case of many users. I doubt it’d hold facing steep downhill on the parkbrake too, but again that’s not something everyone will do.
The car needs testing in more conditions, but it’s definitely good some good offroad capability and it’s to BYD’s credit they’ve reacted so fast, and so effectively. Watch it in action here: