► Living with BYD’s UK flagship
► High-performance saloon joins our fleet
► Great interior and looks sleek – is that enough?
This is going to be an interesting one. BYD, or Build Your Dreams, is a relative newcomer to Europe. The Chinese brand has only really been actively selling cars in this part of the world for the last two years, its range starting with the inoffensive Atto 3 SUV then the Golf-sized Dolphin. This, though, is the heavy hitter.
In case you’ve missed our previous dalliances with this car, the Seal has come closer than anything to beating Tesla’s Model 3 on its own terms.
While BYD might be new to Europe, it’s a household name in China. It started as a battery maker, then moved onto electronic consumer goods – so much so that it now manufactures half of the world’s iPads. BYD made its first car in 2008 and it claims to have built the world’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid.
BYD knows a thing or two about how to make an EV, then. But does it know how to make an exciting one? It’s one thing being impressed by a Seal when you spend a couple of days testing it, but you view a car differently when it’s going to be your main transport for several months.
It’s a slow start, as the Seal is quite unassuming to look at. There aren’t many curves, but the ones it does have are purposeful and neat. It’s far from ugly, and refreshingly clean and simple compared to so many cars that come with a dizzying number and variety of vents, creases, bulges and blemishes. The delicate Ice Blue paint on ‘my’ model looks fantastic, and those aerodynamically focused wheels fit the arches so well.
The interior is refreshing, too. I really like the sweeping design, with the air vents, door handles and speakers all integrated neatly. Everything is solid to the touch and there are no creaks or rattles (not to be taken for granted, even in a new car), and it makes extensive use of physical switchgear for the controls that get used most often.
It feels premium in here, with seats finished in extremely soft leather, piped at the edges and stitched with BYD logos in the head restraints.
The driving position’s pretty good, and there’s enough adjustment to allow me to adopt my favoured BTCC-spec bum-to-the-floor preference easily. There’s also – praise be – an Android-based infotainment system that speaks fluently to my Android-based phone. Not sure how much I’ll be using the screen’s party trick of rotating between landscape and portrait, though – so far, I’ve tried it in portrait once (for these photos, actually) then switched it back to its landscape default.
This very light blue leather upholstery (one of two colours available, the other being black) already presents an issue, though. I got this car handed to me with around 4300 miles on it and the driver’s seat base already looked like it had been through the wringer, tinged a little greyish. A member of the Bauer Automotive product team offered to clean it with some leather cleaner, and it now looks brand new.
My Seal is the Excellence version – the top of the range. The other version is Design. In terms of equipment and comfort, there’s not a huge difference, as the level of kit fitted as standard is high. The Excellence has all-wheel drive and benefits from a head-up display, but both come with those lovely leather seats, heated and cooled in the front, keyless entry, a powered tailgate, semi-autonomous driving assistance, that massive screen and an operating system that gets regular updates and can have apps installed… I could go on.
No, with the Seal’s spec, the clue’s in the badging. If it says ‘3.8S’ on the back, like mine does, that’s your only marker that it’s an Excellence. Why that collection of characters? It sounds like an old-school engine configuration, but it’s actually the 0-62mph acceleration time. Quite a brag – and better than the slightly gaudy BUILD YOUR DREAMS badging of the Atto 3 and Dolphin.
Anyway, the next six months will be interesting. I have high hopes of the BYD, but I wonder if after half a year I’ll still be talking about it as a serious alternative for the Model 3. Certainly, BYD offers some serious engineering and a little more interior glamour for your money over the Tesla. Has the BYD really got what it takes to stand out in such a crowded, competitive market? That’s what I’ll be finding out.
Logbook: BYD Seal Excellence AWD
Price £48,695 (£48,695 as tested)
Performance 82.5kWh battery, two e-motors, 523bhp, 3.8sec 0-62mph, 112mph
Efficiency 3.4 miles per kWh (official), 2.9 miles (tested)
Range 323 miles (official), 312 miles (tested)
Energy cost 16.2p per mile
Miles this month 401
Total miles 4760