Make an Order

While we originally we would put an order for a car as soon as possible after the release, I was a little hesitant given the series of small disappointments which, when taken together, made us think that maybe EVDirect was not as committed to its potential customers and the market in general, as they should be.

For instance, the lack of communication during the second half of 2021, their failure to have a live stream of the release event, the lack of information on the web site about the car and then to top it all off they didn’t even have RH drive vehicles for the launch all made me wonder if I should be spending our money with this company. I didn’t have a problem with BYD or the vehicle. I had gathered as much information as I could from Chinese videos on YouTube. EVDirect seemed to be the weak link from my perspective. And not a lot has happened to make me change my thinking.

However, on Sunday I had to go to the local service station and fill our car up with diesel. It came to over $100 so at that point, using electricity supplied by our solar panels looks pretty attractive. So we got online and ordered.

There was not a whole lot to the process

Choose a battery size. Given that we live 2 hours drive from the nearest city of any size, the extended range was a no brainer.
Choose a colour. Once again a no brainer. The colours cost $700 more. Although we were tempted by the blue which looked very attractive.
Wheels – no choice at this point.
Interior – once again no choice. There has been a little comment about the two tone interior and not the opportunity to choose a darker colour. We really like the interior as shown in the order form. Most of the cars we have seen in Chinese reviews have been what we see here.
Pickup and delivery. Options here depended on your postcode. The options for us were to pick up the vehicle from Brisbane of have it delivered to Gayndah for about $495. We chose to pick up from Brisbane. That will add the cost of getting down to Brisbane and an overnight stay to the cot of the vehicle.
Estimated delivery – July 2022. Given that not much in the last twelve months has gone to schedule, I an not too confident that delivery promise will be adhered to.

That all came to $47,381.35. And with the inroad fees subtotal for Queensland of $1,662.65, the total came to $49,044. Quite a lot more than we originally wanted to pay but given this is probably the last car we will ever buy, we paid the $1,000 refundable deposit and awaited the next step.

We received a receipt from EVDirect recognising our $1,000 deposit and a Order Received email for support@virtualyard.com listing our order details including a order number and the drive away price. A couple of days later we received a Manage Your Order email from support@virtualyard.com advising us that we can track our vehicle’s progress towards delivery.