BYD Racco: This Electric Kei Car Will Lead BYD

• Photos of the first kei car not from a Japanese manufacturer have hit the web ahead of its reveal this week.
• The BYD Racco EV will go on sale around the middle of next year and will only be available in Japan.
• With the Racco, BYD has its sights set on Japan’s best-selling EV, the Nissan Sakura, another electric kei car.

The Japan Mobility Show this year will be the stage for a very special automotive reveal: the first kei car from a non-Japanese carmaker. That’s BYD, China’s largest automaker, which wants to enter the only segment in Japan where electric vehicle sales are somewhat moving.

BYD’s kei car is likely going to be unveiled tomorrow in Tokyo, when more information will be released. Right now, all we have are some photos circulating on social media, which seem to indicate that it will be called the BYD Racco.

Design-wise, there’s nothing surprising or groundbreaking about it. Japanese kei car regulations impose strict limitations on vehicle size, which dictate the unusual proportions of these cars. The BYD Racco is just as tall and narrow as any other kei car you may have seen, so it’s kind of a big box that rides on tiny 14-inch wheels. 

The Racco has a four-door configuration with sliding rear doors, which facilitate second-row access, particularly in tight spaces where there wouldn’t be enough space to swing open a regular door. The size restrictions for kei cars are meant to make them as easy as possible to live with in urban Japan, plus manufacturers want to maximize interior room within the footprint, so they all end up looking very similar.

The grille in the front is completely closed off, but somewhere behind it is an electric motor that has to be legally restricted to 63 horsepower. No word yet on specs, but it’s expected to have a 20-kilowatt-hour battery with a claimed range of 112 miles (180 km).

It will go on sale next year with pricing likely staying close to its main rival, the Nissan Sakura EV, which is also Japan’s best-selling electric car. It went on sale in 2022, and by the end of 2024, it had sold nearly 64,000 units. That’s over 40% of all EVs sold in Japan. The Sakura costs 2.54 million yen or just under $17,000, and a fully-specced example with all the options costs a little over $20,000. CarNewsChina and other sources speculate the BYD Racco could have similar pricing.

BYD is showing a lot of ambition in trying to conquer the (albeit small) Japanese EV market, with a dedicated model and competing against its bestseller. BYD is also the country’s best-selling Chinese automaker, but that’s not saying much given how small the EV segment is. It only sold its 5,000th car in Japan in August of this year after entering the Japanese market in 2023.

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