BYD Seal review

The BYD Seal has a slightly wacky name but this sleek-looking electric saloon promises to be a serious contender in the executive car class.

BYD's flagship car sits above the BYD Atto 3 and BYD Dolphin in its electric model line-up and has its sights set on toppling the impressive Tesla Model 3. That sounds like a tall order for an established car maker, let alone a newcomer to the market, but the Seal has some impressive numbers to show it's not all smooth styling and no substance.

For example, the entry-level car has an official range of more than 350 miles while the range-topper can officially accelerate from 0-62mph in 3.8 seconds. And that's good, because the Model 3 isn't the only car it's up against. The Seal is jumping headfirst into an arena that also includes the BMW i4, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and the Polestar 2.

Can the BYD Seal hold its own against the best electric cars for performance, range, charging speed and more? Read on to find out. Or, if you want to know more about the similarly named – but rather different – Seal U, see our BYD Seal U review.

The BYD Seal is available in two main versions – one with a single motor for rear-wheel drive, badged Design, and the other with two motors providing four-wheel drive, badged the Excellence.

Let's start with the Excellence, which has an official electric range of up to 323 miles. It's quicker from 0-62mph than all versions of the Tesla Model 3, with an official time of 3.8 seconds. When you put your foot down, it takes off with immediate vigour, forcing you back into your seat.

That kind of pace is good to have, but we suspect the entry-level Design model will be more than quick enough for most buyers. At our private test track, we clocked one accelerating from 0-60mph in just 6.1 seconds – 0.3 seconds faster than the rear-wheel-drive Model 3 we tested on the same day. That’s the kind of performance that makes overtaking slow-moving traffic a breeze.

The Seal Design has an official range of 354 miles between charges, which is competitive by electric car standards. However, in our winter real-range test it covered just 255 miles before running out of juice, compared with the 293 miles achieved by a Model 3 Long Range.

With so much power on tap and a heavy battery to carry around, you might assume that the Seal would feature a firm suspension set-up to keep everything in check, but that’s not the case. The suspension feels well tuned for the UK’s broken roads, with enough plushness to soak up raised ironwork but enough control to stop you floating around over undulations.

The Seal Excellence comes with semi-adaptive dampers while the Design gets a passive set-up, but in truth they deliver a very similar ride. Our only complaint is that particularly coarse surfaces send an underlying fidget up through the steering wheel column, a sensation that isn’t present in the Model 3.

Speaking of coarse surfaces, the Seal also drums up a noticeable amount of road noise, but wind noise is at least well contained, with double-glazed front windows standard on both versions. The quietest car at this price point is the supremely refined VW ID 7.

When it comes to handling, BYD says the Seal is a sporty vehicle, and it makes a good go of it, although it’s not as dynamic as a BMW i4 or Porsche Taycan. Body lean is well contained and the Excellence even gets a torque-vectoring system to help increase the grip on offer. Like the Model 3, it's a very quick car from point to point, but it doesn't particularly involve you in the driving process.

We’re also not fans of the Seal's weirdly weighted steering, which feels quite numb and slow around the centre point before suddenly gaining substantial weight and causing the nose to dart into corners.

Setting the steering to Sport doesn’t improve matters, with the extra weight making it feel as though you’re steering through treacle. The i4, Model 3 and ID 7 have more natural feeling set-ups.

When you take a seat in the front of the BYD Seal, you quickly appreciate that the driving position is fundamentally sound and easy to tailor to your shape.

The supportive seats are electrically adjustable with a memory function and adjustable lumbar support as standard, and there's four-way manual steering-wheel adjustment. Our only real gripe is that the wheel tends to cut off your view of the tops of the dials.

Things are less impressive when it comes to visibility. True, the view out of the front is fine, but the sloping roof and small rear windows conspire to reduce the view over your shoulder, making it a challenge to see what’s in your blind-spot. 

To make up for the view and make parking easier, every Seal comes with front and rear parking sensors, and a 360-degree camera that displays a video feed and a digitised version of the Seal on the infotainment touchscreen. It allows you to drag your finger around the screen to rotate your virtual car and see what’s around you.

The Seal's designers – appropriately for BYD's flagship model in Europe – didn’t hold back when it came to the interior styling. It looks very futuristic, with heavily contoured surfaces and eclectic use of materials. It’s more pleasant to sit in than the austere Hyundai Ioniq 6 but not quite up there with the best electric cars for outright build quality.

For example, it doesn’t take long to find harder and cheaper-feeling plastics lower down in the interior, while the shut line between the internal door panel and dashboard on our press car was cavernous. That said, its rotating screen doesn’t wobble when you tug at it – something we’ve experienced in some very expensive Mercedes car models.

The Seal's infotainment screen is an impressive 15.6in and takes centre stage on the dashboard. The graphics are crisp enough but it’s not particularly bright or responsive. To access the shortcut menu you need to swipe down on the screen (it didn't always work first time for us).

There are not many physical buttons or dials in the Seal, so the touchscreen has to manage the climate control and other functions. The result is a system that requires you to navigate through menu after menu to find what you’re looking for, which is far from ideal when you're driving. We much prefer the iDrive rotary controller in the BMW i4.

You do at least get Android Auto and Apple CarPlay as standard, although they can only be used when the screen is in landscape orientation.

Both versions of the BYD Seal come with a glass panoramic roof, but unlike in some car models, it doesn't rob you of head room – it adds more in the front. That means two six-footers will get comfortable easily.

There’s also plenty of leg room and bucket loads of shoulder room, so you won't be knocking elbows with your passenger.

There’s plenty of storage in the front, with occupants treated to decent-sized door bins, a wireless charging pad that holds two mobiles phones, a deep cubby in the central armrest and a large section in the hollowed out centre console. There are also two cupholders built into the centre console with variable depth, allowing you to raise and lower them depending on the size of your drink.

In the rear, there is plenty of leg room and bucket-loads of shoulder room, but a lack of under-thigh support, combined with an oddly shaped seatback, makes long trips uncomfortable. A Tesla Model 3 is much better in this respect, but if you want a true limo-like passenger experience, we’d point you in the direction of the capacious VW ID 7.

The Seal's sloping roofline means rear head room is sufficient rather than generous. As a result, a six-footer will fit in each of the outer seats, but their head will be far closer to the roof than in a Model 3 or ID 7. Middle-seat passengers will have an even worse time of it, because the raised seat means even those under six feet tall will brush the roof.

The Seal has 400 litres of boot space – just about matching the Hyundai Ioniq 6 for volume but lagging behind the Model 3 and ID 7.

We managed to fit seven carry-on suitcases in the Seal boot versus eight in the ID 7 and nine in the Model 3. Still, that’s big enough for a family holiday, and while it doesn’t have a variable-height floor, you do get space under the floor for your cables – freeing up the 53-litre front boot for extra storage.

Indeed, the main problem with the Seal’s boot is that, like in the Ioniq 6 and the Model 3, it only has a small opening, making it hard to load in tall items of luggage. The BMW i4 and the ID 7 feature hatchback-style boots that have a bigger aperture.

As a cash purchase, the entry-level BYD Seal (called the Design) will cost you slightly more than the entry-level Polestar 2. That makes it quite a bit more expensive than the Tesla Model 3 and it only just undercuts the BMW i4 and Hyundai Ioniq 6.

However, with a competitive range and a generous level of standard equipment, the Design RWD is our pick of the range. We wouldn’t blame you if you went for the Excellence AWD though: it only costs a touch more and nets you more power and greater traction. It also undercuts the Long Range Model 3, the Long Range AWD Ioniq 6, the i4 M50 and the VW ID 7 Pro Match.

Standard equipment on both versions includes 19in alloy wheels, an electric tailgate, heated and ventilated seats with electrical adjustment and a memory function, dual-zone air conditioning, a heat pump (to improve efficiency), adaptive cruise control, keyless entry, touchscreen infotainment and parking aids.

The Seal’s Blade battery has a maximum charging rate of 150kW, so if you can find a really quick public charger you should be able to top up from 10% to 80% in around 38 minutes.

That’s slower than the i4 (200kW), the Ioniq 6 (220kW), the ID 7 (175kW) and the Model 3 (up to 170kW for the RWD and 250kW for the Long Range) – plus, the Model 3 has access to the dependable and fast Tesla Supercharger network.

We don’t have any reliability data for the Seal or BYD as a brand yet, so we’ll have to see how it fares over the next few years. It does come with a generous six years or 93,000 miles warranty, which is above average, although Kia gives you seven years. The Seal's battery has its own eight years/124,000 miles warranty.

The Seal scored a full five stars in its Euro NCAP safety test although the Ioniq 6 did a slightly better job of protecting adults in a front impact.

The Seal also benefits from a comprehensive suite of standard safety aids to stop you from getting into a crash in the first place. They include automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot detection, active lane assist, front and rear cross-traffic alert, and traffic-sign recognition.

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