this is the byd seal is this the Chinese electric car to beat the Tesla Model 3 it has a massive range and a swiv infotainment system and in this review we're telling you what it's like but first this video is supported by podo winner of our best home EV charger test 2023 look in our description below to find out more so byd or build your Drdreams is a massive Company from China which arrived in Europe with the byd ATO 3 and it quickly followed that up with the byd dolphin and now we have the byd seal which in byd's own words is a true Masterpiece of ocean inspired design it's a pretty direct rival to the Tesla Model 3 and it's also going to be up against other electric cars like the BMW I4 the Hyundai ionic 6 and the Pulstar 2 but this stands out we'll go into into that later on but first let's look at this interior in the seal and the driving position you have is very typical of a saloon you're fairly low down feels kind of sporty but it's not perfect so you have a 15. 6 in touchscreen infotainment system as standard and it is massive but it's so big that actually your view of it is partially blocked by the steering wheel here you can though whack it into portrait mode and there there are no problems with the visibility of the screen however if you want to use Apple carplay or Android auto then it will force the screen back into landscape mode because you can't run it in portrait so for someone like me who uses Apple carplay every minute of every car Journey I'd never be able to use the portrait layout but the screen itself is reasonably good it's bright it looks quite nice it's not the quickest in its response time but it's still fairly good by infotainment system standards and yes it is a shame that the climate controls are on the touchcreen there are no separate physical controls for them but at least this screen is massive and all these icons are reasonably easy to hit while you're driving now the driver display it is quite busy and a lot of the screen is dedicated to this kilowatt figure which basically tells you how much power you're using at any given moment it is a absolutely useless number that you do not need to know and it is constantly jumping around while you're driving so it's really frustrating when you're just on the motorway going a steady 70 and it is still jumping around all over the place so that is a very annoying in and distracting thing which you can't change unfortunately but it definitely isn't all bad in the interior of this seal because there are lots of things which are good like the standard list of equipment that you get you get this huge touchcreen as standard you get heated and ventilated seats as standard you get wireless phone charging pads for two smartphones which is very impressive and also the materials in here are pretty good it's a fairly eclectic mix you've got some really nice stuff up on the dashboard here and this feels reason be good around the center console but there're also some cheaper feeling Plastics dotted around the interior as well so it's not perfect throughout but the build quality is good it must be said though that all the versions of the seal that we've driven so far have had quite a strong smell of plastic inside practicality does impress though so you got this big nicely padded armrest here same on the door and under this youve got a big storage compartment and there's two cup holders you've got this wireless phone charging tray and under this center console bit here you've got another big storage compartment so not perfect but there is a lot to like still in the seal all seals get a sunroof as standard but this isn't a scenario where you're given a sunroof and the available rear Headroom is really restricted as a result because in the seal that isn't the case you still have the benefit of having this open Airy sunroof and Headroom is still good if you're an adult sat in the back if you're 6t or over you might just begin to feel a little cramped in that respect but leg room is very good in this car it's also great there's a flat floor back here as well so if you're sitting three adults side by side that's a real benefit but the problem with these rear seats is more the actual sitting position because as you can see there isn't much in the way of under thigh support so it would be nicer if these seat bases were perhaps angled up more or slightly longer than they are and the seat backs are quite an odd shape as well so it does mean from a practicality perspective there isn't necessarily anything very wrong with the seal just the sitting position means that you'll be more comfortable in this car's Rivals now you can open the boot of the seal with the key but if you're back here and you don't want to do that then you have to press this button down here which is perfectly placed on a wet and miserable day like this to pick up on all the wet and muck and grime from the road so that isn't particularly great and it's the same for the door handles actually but the boot itself is fairly decent in the seal overall you have 400 L of storage which just about matches the ionic 6 but it is smaller than an i4 and quite a lot smaller than a model 3 you can see you have some underfloor storage at the front here which is Handy but it doesn't go all the way under the hole of the boot floor the aperture is fairly small but in total we managed to get eight carry-on size suitcases into the seal but that includes one up front in this handy 55 L storage compartment a BMW I4 can fit seven suitcases in in total and that's only in its boot because it doesn't have any front storage like this in the byd seal as with every other electric car that has a front boot this is very handy especially for the charging cables anyway what makes the seal stand out from its Rivals well it's the name really isn't it seal doesn't really blend in among BMW I4 postar 2 Tesla Model 3 and we've seen other wacky names from Chinese electric car companies as well things didn't go brilliantly for the aura funky cat which has recently rebranded to become the much more boring gwm Aura 03 but there isn't any suggestion that the seal name is going to change in the future and to be honest it is more subtle than funky cat byd has said though that you will no longer find build your dreams written out on the back of its cars in Europe the first at 3s to come to the UK did have it but the seal won't the exception to that is the dolphin because build your dreams is actually in the light cluster so it's a lot harder to remove but byd shouldn't laughed at because this is a very serious EV brand which outsold Tesla in the last 3 months of 2023 largely thanks to its incredible sales in China so we might not be so familiar with byd in Europe but this is a massive company which started out life making batteries but is now a fully-fledged electric car brand looking to make a big impact in Europe and its Beginnings as a battery making company has helped it transition into the electric car market for a start being able to produce its own battery batteries for its cars saves byd a lot of money because batteries are among the most expensive parts of an EV like the ATO 3 and byd's other electric cars the seal gets what's called a blade battery which is a lithium ion phosphate unit lfp which unlike most other electric car batteries doesn't need Cobalt so for a start that's a plus because the mining of cobalt is quite a contentious issue this battery is also said not to degrade as quickly as others partly because it doesn't have such a negative impact if you charge the battery up to full regularly there are some downsides to lfp units though they're less energy dense than Alternatives meaning they're heavier than a rival battery with the same capacity now there are two different versions of the seal you can buy there is this entry-level design seal which is rear wheeel drive but there's also a range topping Excellence seal which is four-wheel drive whichever one you go for you get the same battery and it has a usable capacity of 82. 5 kwhs and in this entry level model the official range is a very impressive 354 Mi if you go for the range topping excellent seal then it's more powerful it's four-wheel drive but it can't travel quite as far on a full charge so the official range is listed at 323 Mi when it comes to charging up the seal can accept a maximum charging rate of 150 KW that means if you find a charger fast enough you can get a 10 to 80% top up in 38 minutes most other Rivals can charge faster and here's something annoying while the seal is charging the driver display only shows you how much battery percentage you have it doesn't show you anywhere how many miles you're able to cover which is really the only thing you need to know if you want to find that out you have to download an app and look at it on there and to be fair if you own the seal you probably would download the app and be used to doing that but it does seem a shame and slightly annoying that you can't just pop your head in while the car's charging to check how many miles you're able to cover anyway we've seen that the interior of the seal Stacks up fairly well compared to its European Rivals but how does it compare on the road well as we said there are two different versions of this car we'll start with the rang topping four-wheel drive Excellence seal because it is truly rapid it will do not to 62 mph in just 3.
8 seconds and as with all very quick electric cars the way that it delivers its Pace off the line is truly rapid and brutal and it is funny but do you really need to go that quickly because we're in the entrylevel design model which has one electric motor driving the rear wheels and this is still very quick it will still do not to 62 mph in 5. 9 seconds which isn't as quick as a model 3 Performance or as the range topping version of this car but it still has plenty of pace for most needs the two different versions of the seal also have two slightly different suspension setups as well but really on the road you'd be hard pushed to notice a big difference between the two so they both ride in pretty much the same manner that is to say they aren't quite as sophisticated as a model 3 they're relatively well suited to our battered British roads soaking up imperfections pretty impressively but there is a kind of bobbing sensation up and down that you get in this car which you don't have in a model 3 or in an i4 so those two cars ultimately ride better than this when you're on a particularly core surface in the seal you can also notice some vibrations coming up through the steering column now you don't have that in many other electric Rivals to this car and it does become a little bit annoying and noticeable and another annoying thing about the seal is that the test cars we've driven so far have the indicators and the wipers the other way around to what you'd expect in the UK so it means if you're trying to turn left you're accidentally turning the windscreen wipers on if you're going right then again you're changing the windscreen wipers or if it's raining you're just deciding to indicate so that is quite annoying and takes quite a while to try and rewire your brain to understand which way around they are and we haven't actually had it confirmed by byd that UK customer cars will definitely have them the way round that you'd expect so we'll have to see what they're like when those first customer cars arrive in the UK but anyway a strength of the seal on the road is actually the steering itself because it's more fome and more communicative than what you have in an i4 and in a model 3 it's not like some of the best fuel powered Saloon cars but it is still precise nicely weighted and impressive and the handling generally in the seal is pretty good it is a big heavy electric car but it does well to hide its weight through corners body lean is kept well in check so with its good steering decent ride fairly impressive handling this is a nice electric car to do some miles in if not quite as good as its best rivals and if you want to buy byd seal which version should you go for and how should you spec it of the two versions available it's an extra £3,000 to jump up from the entry level seal to the range topping version if you really want that extra Pace or you're desperate for four-wheel drive then fair enough but the entry level design model with its longer range and cheaper price seems the sensible choice and for the record this isn't a particularly cheap electric car there does seem to be a perception that every electric car from China is incredibly cheap and perhaps unfairly so but that isn't the case for byd it's not that it's expensive but it's priced in line with its Rivals and a model 3 is still cheaper Than This plus because this is expected to suffer from pretty heavy depreciation it means that monthly PCP Finance deals aren't particularly enticing compared to its Rivals specking up a seal is a pretty simple process because there isn't much to choose from you get four colors which you can have as standard without paying any extra or if you do want to spend a little bit more then that gives you a choice of an extra too inside there are two different color schemes neither of them cost any extra to have there's no choice in the wheels and there are no other options to add which is absolutely fine because you get loads of equipment as standard so you get this infotainment system you get heated and ventilated front seats you get adaptive cruise control with Lane keeping assistance you get dual zone air conditioning and you get a very high quality and snazzy parking camera and if you're a bit wary of buying from a car brand that you've never heard of before you can rest assured that the seal has a maximum five-star safety rating from experts Euro endcap and it comes with a very impressive 6-year or 96,000 Mi warranty so the byd seal might have a wacky name but this is a pretty serious electric car it's decent inside and on the road and it comes with tons of equipment but it has the same problem as lots of other electric cars the model 3 is better and cheaper thanks for watching this review if you want to see another another one then click up there and if you want a great deal on your next car and if you want to read our written review of the seal go to whatcar.
