A BYD D1, seen in Beijing in the summer of 2023, parked alongside the road and fitted with the Beijing city’s green NEV license plates. The BYD D1 is quite a special car. It is a purpose-built model for ride-hailing services, developed by BYD in cooperation with Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi.
DiDi is the largest ride-hailing platform in the world, with over 550 million users (2023), tens of millions of drivers, and 29.4 million daily rides on average in China alone. The vast majority of the drivers are either self-employed or employed by taxi companies that operate under the DiDi umbrella.
Each driver and each company brings its own vehicles, some may be new and electric, but others are older and petrol-powered. That looks messy, so DiDi has long been looking for ways to create a fleet of cars that is more alike. Therefore, it came up with a plan to develop a purpose-built ride-hailing vehicle. DiDi teamed up with BYD to build it.
The result was the BYD D1. The D1 name refers to “Always Day 1”, one of DiDi’s business principles that focuses on speedy service. The D1 was unveiled in 2020. It has a simple MPV-like design, optimized for interior space and easy entry & exit. On the left side, it has a standard rear door, but on the right, it has…
… a sliding door. The D1 is classified as a 5-seat MPV in China. Size: 4390/1850/1650, with a 2800 wheelbase. It is a single-motor front-wheel-drive car. Output is 100 kW and 180 Nm. The top speed is 130 km/h.
Note the orange button on the steering wheel. That is the “Didi key”, the driver can take orders with one click on the button, so he doesn’t need to use his mobile phone to take orders while driving.
The interior is basic, but that is all it needs to be. There is a 10.1-inch screen that shows the map and estimated arrival time. The driver has a tiny instrument panel and steers with a perfectly found steering wheel. The driver’s seat is black, whereas the passenger seats are white-black.
Passengers can adjust the temperature and fan speed via the DiDi app, even before they get in the car. There is a tray table on the back of the front passenger seat and lots of legroom, the bench is wide enough for 3 adults.
The BYD D1 uses a Blade LFP battery, with a capacity of 53.6 kWh. The range is 418 kilometers CLTC, and electricity consumption is 12.8kWh/100 km. Fast charging (10-80%) takes 35 minutes.
Special ride-hailing vehicles are not uncommon in China. Baidu is working on a similar vehicle as the D1, and many other taxi companies are operating fleets of purpose battery-swap taxis. For much more on Chinese battery-swap technology, check my article for The Autopian.
Initially, the BYD D1 was only sold to drivers who were officially connected to the DiDi ride-hailing platform. But sales of the D1 were slower than expected. Most drivers preferred to drive their own car, instead of paying extra cash to get one from DiDi.
So in 2022, BYD launched the D1 on the private market, so everybody could have a D1. It makes some sense as a family car, I guess, with all that space and basic trim that the kids can’t kill. The D1 is cheap too, there is only one variant and it costs 157.800 yuan or $24.7K. Sadly for BYD, for that money, Chinese car buyers can choose between a lot of other EVs that are not half taxis, so sales are super slow. And that makes the D1 a very rare car on the road in China today.