After the backlashing, (See https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/720600), BYD have updated the service plan for the Atto 3.
In a breakdown, there are 2 new options:
1) Average $299 per year for a standard car user doing roughly 20,000 kilometres per annum. (Costs dropped to $189, $370 and $447 from $191, $504 and $661).
2) Fixed price of $189 per year for a lower kilometre car user, which is a new offering of a capped price for up to 60,000 kilometres over 5 years.
This should be lower than the $199/$500+ service plan that the BYD was on initially, with a total cost of $2390 over 8 years compared $3094 before.
Thoughts?
The email is copied below as it does not seem to be on the bydautomotive website.
Warranty and Service Update
There has been some commentary regarding our recently released service and warranty, which we have considered, and we wish to take the opportunity to provide an update.
Including the good news that we have introduced more flexibility and lower cost into our service schedule.
Safety is our number one priority
Our company is committed to ensuring that safety is our number one priority - as are our partners BYD, and the service network through Eagers Automotive (Eagers) and mycar. Regular service checks and maintenance are necessary and a highly important practice to ensure the safety and well-being of your vehicle.
It is correct that we are in a new and exciting era with electric vehicles (EVs). This is a generational change of technology which presents an opportunity to reduce overall costs in vehicle servicing and evolve some processes. However, your safety is something we will never compromise on.
At EVDirect, we are representing BYD, the world's leading EV manufacturer. BYD vehicles comprise the most advanced technology including the safest battery technology and our maintenance program is developed to ensure your vehicle is accurately and safely serviced and maintained, at all times.
Giving you the best service experience
As a group, we have rolled out the largest and most comprehensive electric vehicle service network in Australia, with upwards of 50 highly trained EV service facilities across the country. As a consumer and operator of a BYD vehicle, this service network provides reliability, convenience and access to trained mechanics and technicians with the right tools, training and qualifications to safely maintain your new electric vehicle.
We have provided the widest EV service network to ensure you have the safest and best driving experience. In parallel we have endeavoured to ensure we remain highly competitive for the total whole-of-life cost to consumers buying a BYD EV, this includes the upfront purchase price and regular servicing.
Under our cost and sales structure, we want you to be able to transition into a quality EV at the lowest possible price and start making material savings on fuel and driving cleanly and positively for the environment. Our service fees are in line with our manufacturer's recommendation and provide complete transparency and cost certainty. Like no other EV company, we are delivering on our promise to ensure more consumers have access to and the ability to obtain, afford and maintain a high-quality EV.
How we've changed servicing to benefit you
We have modified our structure and made provisions for drivers who are doing fewer kilometres, and this enables us to offer more flexibility and reduced pricing for all our customers as summarised:
- Option 1 / Standard Kilometres:
Average $299 per year for a standard car user doing roughly 20,000 kilometres per annum.
- Option 2 / Lower Kilometres:
Fixed price of $189 per year for a lower kilometre car user, which is a new offering of a capped price for up to 60,000 kilometres over 5 years.
Positive Outcome:
The specific cost breakdown is shown below. To keep this as simple as possible there are now two options and the pricing with our new more flexible structure will result in lower maintenance costs for all our customers.
- Option 1 - Standard Kilometres
Amended Price for a standard car user for 8 years' Service, or 160,000 kilometres travelled:
Time (months 3 12 24 36 48 60 72 84 96 Kilometres 5k 20k 40k 60k 80k 100k 120k 140k 160k Service Type A B A C A B A C Customer Cost (GST Incl.) Complimentary $189 $370 $189 $447 $189 $370 $189 $447
- Option 2 - Lower Kilometres
For the lower kilometre driver, this option provides certainty with the service cost capped at $189 each year for up to 60,000 kilometres over 5 years.
BYD vehicle owners will have the option to select the lower kilometre service arrangement at the time of purchase of your vehicle. Further information will be available as part of your vehicle purchase process.
If you end up driving more kilometres than originally planned and go above the lower kilometre range during the first 5 years, you will simply need to move onto the standard kilometre schedule. Note that this would only occur once 60,000 kilometres is reached so you are not disadvantaged in any way.
We do wish to note that all pricing above is for all BYD Automotive-approved service partners which include the service network provided through Eagers Automotive and mycar. If you opt to use your own chosen service professional, the cost will be set by them.
Other Options / Choice
We are a firm believer in providing our consumers with choice whilst playing a leading role in educating the market around EV service and safety. To this end, we will continue to grow and invest in our national service network. A major part of this is the continual activation of the mycar network which will see more stores and locations able to service EVs across the country.
Additionally, we are pleased to confirm that we have decided to accelerate a plan we had under development which will see BYD and EVDirect release an online training and technology portal which will be available to all independent mechanical and auto-electrical professionals who wish to upskill and learn more about the safety and service elements of electric vehicles.
The background to this significant investment by EVDirect is to bridge the gap in skills for this new landscape of EV servicing and enable any qualified technician to upskill and ready themselves for EV servicing. As more electric cars, both BYD and other brands, are driven on Australian roads, the importance of education and training of the many skilled independent service companies across Australia is something we will support and encourage.
Ultimately this will mean, 'you' the consumer will have more choice.
Timing of the release of our service schedule
To clear up some conjecture on the timing and release of our service details - we have been working diligently and to unprecedented timeframes to ensure we deliver our EVs as close to our estimated delivery time as possible. As many electric vehicle consumers are aware there are very few options in Australia for supply or choice of good quality and well-priced electric vehicles.
Therefore, for us, we have been focused on bringing the exciting BYD ATTO3 plus other new BYD models to the country in large volumes for more Australians to drive and enjoy. In parallel, we have been developing the service schedule with our partners and released our service schedule at the earliest possible time we could.
We recently released our service details and decided to do so with complete transparency and before any actual sales contracts are entered into by customers. We undertook a very comprehensive market research process before releasing our service schedule to compare our data versus other brands. What we found and then decided was the best path forward being a complete and open line of transparency with you the consumer - we did not want to make our customers have to dig into the fine print like you may need to do if looking at some other brands. We also didn't want any form of surprise when the actual service on your new EV is undertaken.
To add even more clarity and transparency around our service costing, we further advise that roughly 77% of the total service cost we have published is made up of qualified labour costs and therefore, there is not an inflated price on spare parts. Our parts costing is simply the cost price plus a handling fee to ensure we can have a robust logistics and supply network to make sure the appropriate spare parts are on hand nationally.
Warranty Details
Regarding warranty, we decided to be clear and transparent which has received some positive feedback but also some negative feedback. We have listened very carefully and reviewed. What we wish to confirm is that we have laid all elements clear of what exactly is included in your new EV warranty.
In some cases, some of our customers have made their opinion vocal regarding the exclusions that sit below the 6 or 8-year mark. Given the vocality we wish to address and highlight that we intend to go forward with a very clear pathway for our customers and in simple terms we have done away with any fine print and offered total transparency which is something that has not always been the case in the automotive market.
Specifically, regarding exclusions to help clarify this, these exclusions are for parts of the vehicle and service process of vehicle operations that are beyond the manufacturer's control, therefore some form of balance is required between providing the best possible warranty for all customers but also enabling provisions for some parts that may be inadvertently mistreated or overused. In our case, the customer base is very broad ranging from drivers doing a small number of kilometres right through to buyers using their BYD for commercial use in rideshare applications.
The warranty we offer is a fully factory-backed warranty by BYD and provides a best-in-class 8-year warranty on the most valuable part of the BYD product the LFP blade battery.
We have listened to the feedback and whilst the battery warranty has been increased to 8 years, we realise there still may be some early customers who feel the whole car warranty adjustment to 6 years was a disappointment so in good faith we are offering all customers who placed an order before today's date the first year of servicing costs being $189 in value completely free of charge. This $189 amount will be issued as a service certificate upon your vehicle purchase and will be redeemable at all BYD automotive-approved service partners which include Eagers Automotive and mycar.
Our Australian-based customer care team are ready and open to answering any of your questions and can be contacted via:
Email [email protected] or phone 1300 BYD AUTO (1300 293 288).
Yearly servicing on an EV? What for? Not like there’s oil to change or that brakes are as heavily used.