2024 BYD Seal Saloon Review

Our first drive in the BYD Seal on Irish roads

Sleek electric saloon arrives in Ireland, but can it seriously challenge the Tesla Model 3?

Review

Pros: Sharp looks, stylish cabin, good range, performance, price

Cons: Handling and ride not as good as some rivals

BYD Seal Design

BYD — the vast Chinese car maker whose acronym stands for Build Your Dreams —clearly has big ambitions for this new Seal four-door electric saloon, as it’s styled it to look like a half-way house between the Porsche Taycan and the Tesla Model 3. Is it just a case of copy and paste? No, that’s not quite fair. You can see clear influences of the Tesla in the overall shape, and the Taycan around the lights, but overall, the Seal is a smart-looking saloon with good proportions and some nice details. At the front there’s a subtle X-shape made by the headlights and the low-set LED daytime running lights (which have a wave-like shape to them, in honour of the Seal’s aquatic name). The partially-black-finished 19-inch alloys are also smart, and around the back you get a full-width light bar between the brake lights. What you don’t get is “Build Your Dreams” spelled out in chrome letters on the boot lid. Initially, the Seal’s sibling car, the Atto 3 crossover, came with just that, but BYD has since realised that’s a touch gauche for European tastes, so it’s been deleted. Meanwhile, if you’ve bought the two-motor, four-wheel-drive version of the Seal, you also get a neat “3.8” badge on the back. That’s not the engine size, that’s the 0-100km/h time…

BYD Seal Interior

If the Seal’s exterior is discreet and tasteful, then the interior is where the BYD design team (now 1,000 strong and working on multiple vehicle and brand lineups) has been allowed to go to town a little more. Go for the optional pale blue interior colour option and the effect really is striking with quilted synthetic leather seats, a neat three-spoke, leather-wrapped steering wheel, a crystal gear selector (just as you get in high-end BMWs) and a gently wavy design for the dashboard.

Black-finished interiors look a touch more restrained, and might wear a little better in the long run. That pale blue seat upholstery looks as if it would mark very easily, as does the matching suede-like material on the dashboard and doors. Overall quality feels incredibly good, though, and all the major touchpoints — from the wheel to the physical buttons on it and the centre console — feel expensive.

The big 15.6-inch touchscreen in the centre of the dash does the usual BYD trick of rotating from landscape to portrait orientation and back again at the touch of a button. It’s a bit of a gimmick — you’ll probably pick your preferred layout and leave it there — but it’s worth noting that in portrait mode, it can be difficult to see the screen properly if you’re wearing polarised sunglasses. The fact that the air conditioning controls are on the screen, rather than having proper physical controls, is a disappointment, but the general layout of the screen’s menus and software is decent, even if - as with so many screens - it can take too many distracting pushes and presses to get to the item you want. On the upside, there is a proper driver’s display behind the wheel, so unlike the Tesla Model 3 and Smart #3, you don’t have to keep looking to the centre of the car to check your speed.

Space in the Seal is generous. The high-backed front seats are enormously comfortable, and there’s good storage space in the centre console, which is also home to two wireless phone charging pads. The back seat is surprisingly roomy for such a slinky-looking car, with plenty of legroom and headroom for even the tallest passengers. It probably helps that BYD claims its unique battery design saves a good bit of interior space. In the back, the boot is adequate at 400 litres, and is backed up by an especially useful ‘frunk’ storage space in the nose, which can hold 53 litres.

BYD Seal Performance & Drive

BYD is that rare thing, a car maker which also makes its own batteries (most car companies buy their batteries from outside suppliers such as LG, CATL, or Panasonic). BYD, in fact, started as a battery maker, and something like one-fifth of all mobile phones on sale use a BYD battery. For its cars, BYD has gone for a lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery, rather than the lithium-ion packs used by the likes of Tesla and Hyundai. LFP batteries don’t hold quite as much charge for a given size and weight as a lithium-ion battery, but the upside is that they are more robust, more long-lived and more affordable. The Seal’s 82.5kWh battery officially provides up to 570km of range in the standard rear-wheel-drive Design model, and up to 520km for the more powerful four-wheel-drive Excellence model.

Is it worth upgrading to the four-wheel-drive version? Probably not. The standard Design version can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 5.9 seconds thanks to a 312hp motor with 360Nm of torque. Sure, the 530hp and 670Nm of the four-wheel-drive model is tempting, but once you’ve made your family carsick a couple of times with that acceleration, you’re probably better off with the still-perfectly-brisk - and longer-ranged - Design. Both cars come with more or less identical equipment anyway, although the Excellence does get uprated dampers, which might be a good idea if you’re a regular country back-road user. That’s because the Seal’s firm ride (firm, rather than harsh) can get a bit unsettled on a washboard surface. The steering is quick but a bit over-light and lacks the more natural feel of, say, a Polestar 2. Equally, it’s not as refined as a Hyundai Ioniq 6.

BYD Seal Pricing

The Seal starts at €44,036 (including all grants) for the Design version, and €49,836 for the Excellence. That makes it better value than the Hyundai or the Polestar and puts it right into the Tesla Model 3 heartland. A basic Model 3 is cheaper, to the tune of €2,000, but doesn’t offer as long a range as the Seal. A Model 3 Long Range offers an extra 100km of range, compared to the Seal Excellence, but isn’t as quick and is fractionally more expensive. That could make the Seal an intriguing proposition for those looking to replace a Model 3. Standard spec includes 19-inch alloys, a panoramic glass roof, heat-pump heating and air conditioning, thermal glazing, 150kW DC fast charging, a 360-degree parking camera, adaptive cruise control, and three ISOFIX points (two in the back and one in the front).

Carzone Verdict

In many ways, the Seal is quite a thrilling car. No, not just because of the way the Excellence model accelerates, but because it demonstrates the sheer engineering and design prowess of the Chinese car industry. While the steering could be sharper and the ride could be softer, the Seal is a car that lands right in the heart of the sleek, low-slung saloon car market with impressive electric performance and a compelling price. This could be very successful indeed.