A bit of an awkward moment for Chinese carmaker BYD in Australia – the company has got itself into a bit of trouble by delivering the wrong cars to people, according to reports from the country. 

It is believed that customers first noticed discrepancies with their new cars and complained to the carmaker, which thought that it might have been a few outliers, but it turns out that more than 1,200 cars have been affected. 

The problem? Cars that were 2025-specification cars were delivered to people as 2026-specification vehicles. 

With the level of upgrades that are common among Chinese manufacturers, the specification and trim levels could have changed significantly between the two model years and the cars would have lost value when the error came to light. 

And with the speediness worthy of an F1 team, BYD has now had to get in touch with the affected drivers to apologise. The company originally offered just under £600 in compensation for the error, but now the company is offering full refunds to the affected owners should they want them as media outlets pick up the story. 

It is believed that the mix-up in models came about because the company was looking at the date the cars left the factory rather than when they were actually made. 

The mistake wasn’t confined to one particular BYD model, suggesting that the problem was a centralised issue. BYD Australia told media outlets in the country that it was down to an administrative error and that steps were being taken to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again in the future. Among the affected models was the Shark 6 pick-up truck (above), which has just been announced for UK sale at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. 

Given that Australian cars are right-hand drive the same as in the UK, Electrifying has been in touch with BYD’s UK press office to see whether cars sent to Britain could have been affected by the same issue, but we hadn’t heard back at the time of publishing.