Riddara Electric Cars

What Riddara is

Riddara is the export badge for Radar Auto, the electric-utility sub-brand of China's Geely Auto Group. It builds one thing: electric pickups on Geely's M.A.P. platform. In Pakistan the brand is distributed by Capital Smart Motors (CSM), a subsidiary of Habib Rafiq Engineering, which signed an EV mobility memorandum with Geely and imports the trucks as completely built units — there is no local assembly.

The Pakistani line-up is exactly one model. As of 26 July 2026 the **Riddara RD6 spans **Rs 13,299,000 to Rs 16,999,000 ex-factory in three variants. Those prices were announced in October 2025 and have not moved since, confirmed identically today by PakWheels, ProPakistani and CSM's own site.

The lineup and prices

Ex-factory excludes registration, provincial tax and freight. The drivetrain ordering is unusual — the cheapest variant is the four-wheel-drive one — so get it written on the booking form rather than assumed.

{/* VERIFY: Econ 4WD / Air 2WD split — reported by ProPakistani and matched by Riddara's Nepal "RD6 Econ 4x4" launch, but not confirmed on a Capital Smart Motors spec sheet */}

Every Riddara in Pakistan is a BEV. Say it out loud.

Conflating BEV, PHEV and HEV is the most common error in Pakistani EV coverage, and this brand attracts it because its closest rival is a plug-in hybrid.

• The RD6 sold here is a BEV — a pure battery-electric vehicle. No engine, no fuel tank, no range extender, no petrol bill.
• Riddara does build an RD6 EM-P, a plug-in hybrid with a 1.5-litre turbo three-cylinder and a 19.09 kWh pack. It is not sold in Pakistan.
• The BYD Shark 6, the truck the RD6 is constantly compared against, is a PHEV with a 1.5-litre petrol engine and a 60-litre tank. It is not an electric pickup, whatever the showroom says.

That distinction decides your fuel bill, your service schedule and your resale story. If a salesperson tells you an RD6 "has a petrol backup for long trips," they are describing a different vehicle and you should discount everything else they say.

At launch several Pakistani outlets also printed "436 horsepower, 650 Nm" as the RD6's output. Those are the Shark 6 PHEV's figures. The RD6's 4WD versions make 315 kW / 595 Nm; the 2WD makes 200 kW / 384 Nm.

Why an electric pickup, and why not

The RD6 is the only battery-electric pickup you can buy new in Pakistan, and the utility case is real: 3,000 kg towing, a 1,200-litre bed, 815 mm wading depth, 225 mm ground clearance, and a 6 kW vehicle-to-load outlet that turns the truck into a job-site or load-shedding generator. In the 4WD variants it reaches 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds.

The case against is equally real. The 86 kWh pack is modest for a vehicle over two tonnes, so consumption is high — we work on 25 kWh per 100 km at the wall. And a pickup is the worst vehicle type for the solar argument, because it spends the sunny hours away from the roof that is supposed to charge it.

What it actually costs to run

Working at 25 kWh/100 km, against petrol at Rs 335.18/litre and diesel at Rs 383.46/litre (effective 25 July 2026 — Pakistan now revises fuel prices near-daily, so re-check):

Read the last two rows against the public-charging row. An RD6 charged exclusively at public DC costs roughly what a BYD Shark 6 costs burning petrol. The electric pickup only wins on running cost when it is charged at home — and it wins overwhelmingly when it is charged off your own panels.

The SolarNevs line: self-consumed rooftop solar makes the marginal cost of a kilometre roughly Rs 0. A 585W panel yields about 2.3 kWh a day in Pakistani conditions, which covers about 9 km a day in an RD6. So 30 km/day needs about 4 panels, 50 km/day about 6, and 100 km/day about 11 — dedicated to the truck, on top of household load.

This matters far more since 9 February 2026, when Pakistan replaced net metering with net billing. Exported units now earn about Rs 11/unit against import costs above Rs 50. Selling surplus solar to the grid has stopped making sense; storing it in a vehicle battery between roughly 10am and 4pm is now the best available use of a Pakistani rooftop array — and an 86 kWh truck is a very large bucket. Connections dated before 9 February 2026 keep their old one-for-one terms.

What we would tell a buyer before booking

Local specification data is contradictory, and that is a warning in itself. CSM calls the 461 km range figure WLTP; other Pakistani sources say 455 km NEDC, and Geely's records place 461 km on NEDC. PakWheels' database lists a 73 kWh LFP pack against the 86 kWh NMC everyone else reports — and calls this pickup front-wheel drive. A brand whose own market cannot agree on its battery size is one you should demand written specifications from.

Real range is well below the claim. NEDC is the most generous cycle in common use. Independent testing of the same 86 kWh 4x4 abroad returned 350-400 km. Budget 320-350 km mixed in Pakistan, about 300 km on the motorway with AC and a load.

The battery replacement number does not exist publicly. CSM advertises an 8-year battery warranty but publishes neither the kilometre cap nor the vehicle warranty term, and no source in Pakistan states what a replacement 86 kWh pack costs. On a truck at this price that is the largest unpriced risk in the transaction.

{/ VERIFY: RD6 Pakistan warranty kilometre cap and vehicle (non-battery) warranty term — not published by Capital Smart Motors */} {/ VERIFY: battery replacement cost for the 86 kWh RD6 pack in Pakistan — no published figure found */}

The charging network is the deciding constraint. Arab News reported in January 2026 that Pakistan had just over 20 operational public charging points nationwide against a 3,000-station target for 2030, with licences far outnumbering energised sites because of DISCO connection, meter and NOC delays. Public DC electricity costs Rs 110-120/unit against a Rs 39.70/kWh policy cap that is widely ignored. There is no usable highway DC network for a truck that needs 86 kWh to fill.

{/* VERIFY: count of genuinely operational public DC points nationwide — no authoritative register; sources range from ~20 operational to ~71 licensed */}

We found no Pakistani owner. A full year after the July 2025 price reveal we could not locate a single verifiable Pakistani owner review, delivery report or independent local road test. That is not a criticism of the truck; it means there is no local evidence base at all, and no used-market data, and no battery state-of-health disclosure norm. Buy an RD6 to keep through the warranty period, not to trade in three years.

Flood and load-shedding. Riddara rates the 4WD RD6's high-voltage system to IP67 and its battery pack to IP68, with 815 mm of claimed wading — better sealed than most vehicles on a flooded Karachi road, and still not a boat. If the truck has stood in water above the sill, do not restart it. Tow it and have it inspected. Separately, a 6.6 kW wall box on a load-shedding feeder will not reliably put 86 kWh in overnight; solar plus storage is not optional on this vehicle.

Where Riddara sits

Riddara's pitch is straightforward: an electric pickup for less than the plug-in hybrid one, in a price band that overlaps the diesels. What you give up is a 30-year service network, five-minute refuelling, predictable resale and any published answer on battery replacement. What you get back is roughly Rs 30 a kilometre saved against diesel — but only if you charge at home, and near-total savings if you charge off your own roof. Answer the home-charging question first. We do not sell cars and take no dealer money.

Model page: Riddara RD6