- yesterday
Chinese carmaker BYD has unveiled its latest electric SUV, the Sealion 7, aiming to challenge established players like the Tesla Model Y. Steve Fowler gives his first impressions of the new model, which boasts dual motors, a premium ocean-inspired design, and a high-tech 15.6-inch rotating touchscreen.But while the Sealion 7 impresses on performance and build quality, questions remain over its ride comfort and pricing. With a higher price tag and shorter range than some competitors, including Tesla and Xpeng, the Sealion 7 may face an uphill battle in Europe’s competitive EV market.
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00:00Another week, another BYD launch. These things come along like London buses, don't they?
00:04And London buses just happen to be made by BYD these days.
00:07Today though, it's not about the BYD bus, it's about the BYD Sea Lion 7.
00:24So this is the BYD Sea Lion 7.
00:28Now, disappointingly, there wasn't a 1 to 6, they've started at 7 for some reason.
00:32And it's part of the Ocean Series, which also has the SEAL, the SEAL U DMI, the Dolphin, and there's going to be a baby Dolphin at some stage.
00:41So the Sea Lion 7, Sea Lion one word apparently.
00:44It's an SUV, unsurprising, it's quite long, 4.8 metres long, targeting the obvious thing, the Tesla Model Y.
00:51That's the world's best-selling car, so it's a pretty good one to target.
00:54We'll go through the stats in a little while, but just have a look at some of the design features, because I think it's quite nice little design features.
01:01We'll start with these lights, with these little sort of U-shaped LED bits in here and a sort of underlined daylight running signature.
01:08So quite cute, but let's be honest, if I did that and covered up the badge, it could be any one of a number of things.
01:15But I have said it is quite large, but I think it disguises the size quite well.
01:19You've got a little thing here that says BYD Design, who else is it going to be?
01:24And pop-out handles there, which is quite a nice premium touch.
01:28This is a premium car, apparently.
01:31Either 19 or 20-inch wheels, they're quite fancy, 20-inch on this one.
01:36And at the back, it slopes down, but the headroom is pretty good inside.
01:40And my pet hate at the back, just come and have a look at this.
01:43What do you notice? What's missing?
01:45Well, clearly spoilers aren't missing, because you've got a spoiler there and a little ducktail spoiler here.
01:51But no rear wiper.
01:53This is another one of those cars where the designers will say the aerodynamics will keep the windshield at the back clean.
02:00What absolute poppycock.
02:03If you're standing stationary in traffic, that ain't going to be clean.
02:06It's going to be covered in rain.
02:07You need a wiper.
02:08So come on, BYD, put a wiper on it.
02:11You can hide it under there. It would be absolutely fine.
02:13It's quite smart at the back here, isn't it?
02:16I mean, it's pretty generic.
02:17And there are lots of sensors, parking sensors, cameras.
02:21You've got sensors at the front.
02:22This is a technological tour de force.
02:26So let's have a look at some of the technology inside, shall we?
02:29Do you know what? It's quite nice in here.
02:31I know they said it's premium, but it does actually feel quite premium.
02:34Lots of soft-touch materials, which I'm a sucker for a soft-touch material.
02:39Some sort of Alcantara-effect stuff.
02:42The seats are very comfortable.
02:43They're heated and ventilated and electric-powered.
02:46Of course, you've got a 50-watt charger for your smartphone.
02:51And do you know what? There's a little thing there that cools it down.
02:53If you've ever put your smartphone on one of these chargers, quite often they overheat
02:57and suddenly you lose your navigation and everything.
02:59There's a little cooling thing there, which I quite like.
03:01But yeah, this is really quite posh in here.
03:05Good headroom. There's a Dynaudio stereo.
03:07I haven't actually listened to that to see how it sounds.
03:11But I just want to talk to you about this screen because I really like this screen.
03:15Let's just have a look here.
03:16Sorry to complain a lot about touchscreens, but this is quite a good one.
03:19One of my favourite features, which you probably won't use other than just to show your friends,
03:23is using the voice control, which is pretty good in this car.
03:27Hey, BYD.
03:29Hi there.
03:30Rotate screen.
03:32Okay. Rotating the screen.
03:33I can't get enough of that.
03:36There's some other lovely little features on here that I like that are really quite clever.
03:40Yeah, I'm going to make sure you're quiet.
03:42BYD have thought about this and the usability is quite good.
03:46Three fingers are key.
03:47Good job it's not two fingers, otherwise I'd be very rude.
03:49But if you want to adjust the temperature, you just quite quickly...
03:53Can you see that?
03:54You move your fingers up and down and it changes the temperature, which I think is quite clever.
04:00If you want to change the fan speed, you get your three fingers and you move it up and down like that, which is really quite good.
04:07And you've also got this sort of dock at the bottom, which has got your important stuff like the rear demister, which you need because you haven't got the rear wiper.
04:16Not that I'm bitter about that.
04:18And heating and ventilation controls.
04:20So in the front here, I quite like this.
04:22Visibility at the side is good.
04:24At the back, it looks like looking through a letterbox, frankly.
04:28But pretty much all cars are like that.
04:30Let's see how much space there is for the family back there, shall we?
04:32Big doors open nice and wide, make it easy to get in or put a child in a child seat.
04:36And yes, I know I'm not backseat material, but loads of leg room back here.
04:43This is quite impressive.
04:44And I love a full-length panoramic sunroof, which you don't get the benefit of if you're sitting in the front, but you do back here.
04:51These rear seats are heated as well, which if you haven't had heated rear seats in the back, you haven't lived.
04:57And the quality again back here is really impressive.
05:00The seats actually adjust to three different levels, apparently.
05:03So as a family thing, it stacks up pretty well.
05:08Maybe a bit too posh for the family.
05:09Certainly my family.
05:11Don't tell them.
05:12Let's have a quick look in the boot.
05:14Press a button to open the boot.
05:16And there you have a space with 520 litres of room, apparently, which is quite nice.
05:23If you can see, it's all a bit dark in here.
05:25But down there, there's a nice little well to put stuff in.
05:31Yeah, that's okay.
05:32Works for the family.
05:33If there's not enough space in here, there's a frunk.
05:36A frunk with 58 litres.
05:39That's it.
05:4058 litres in the frunk.
05:41I think they should call it a fruit.
05:43A front boot.
05:45One of my favourite features, I love this, is the fact that your phone is the key.
05:49So you just have to tap the door mirror and the car unlocks.
05:54And away you go.
05:54The only problem is, trust me, when your phone is your key, you sometimes forget to take your
05:59house keys with you.
06:00So there is a strong safety story at the BYD C-Line 7 as well.
06:09One of the things that sticks in my mind from the presentations that we sat through,
06:13went on a bit, was the fact that there's a different front structure, because there's nothing really
06:19at the front.
06:20It's very deformable.
06:21And the thing that I remember is that in a frontal impact, the pedals only come back
06:28five millimetres into the passenger compartment, and the industry average is apparently 50 millimetres.
06:35I like facts like that.
06:36I hope you do too.
06:36But what's this car like to drive?
06:40Well, you can choose from a couple of flavours.
06:43Firstly, there's the 82 kilowatt hour battery available in front or all-wheel drive.
06:48And that car will go 300 miles.
06:52This car has a 91 kilowatt hour battery.
06:5591 kilowatt hours.
06:56That's over 500 brake horsepower this car's got.
07:00It means it will do 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds.
07:04In fact, I'm so, in fact, 0 to 62 to be precise.
07:08I'm so confident of that fact, I'm going to put a badge on the boot just to remind me.
07:14Why would you do that?
07:15The boot, it says 4.5 S, just to remind you that this car will do 0 to 62 in 4.5 seconds.
07:22And BYD is very proud of that and the performance of this car.
07:25Now, this one will go a maximum of 312 miles.
07:29It's got fast charging, up to 230 kilowatts where you can find a suitable fast charger,
07:36which means it will get from 10 to 80% in 24 minutes, which is handy.
07:41The smaller battery only has 150 kilowatt fast charging, still reasonable enough.
07:45But that mileage, 312 miles, for a car with a 91 kilowatt hour battery, I don't think that's enough.
07:55I'm interested to know what you think about that.
07:57Let us know.
07:57But BYD says it's more about the performance.
08:00Put the performance in.
08:01You can't quite have that range.
08:02They're confident that people want to do 0 to 62 in 4.5 seconds.
08:07I really think they couldn't care less.
08:11And if they had a little slider on this wonderful touchscreen here that said they could take the 0 to 62 time down to, say, 7.5 seconds
08:19and get the range up to 360 miles, I think most people would do that.
08:24But BYD know best and they talk about this car as very much a premium performance vehicle.
08:30And therein lies another issue in that it doesn't really feel like a sporting SUV.
08:36It's an SUV, so people aren't going to be throwing it around the roundabouts here in Milton Keynes.
08:42And the ride is a strange mixture of a bit jittery, low-speed ride, but then occasionally it feels a little bit floaty.
08:52And if you do put it into a corner a bit quickly, then the car does lean a little bit.
08:57Now, for most people, most of the time, I think they're going to be very, very happy.
09:02It's quiet in here and, let's say, most people, most of the time, the ride is going to be okay.
09:07But even just going over these sort of drain covers here, you can always feel it.
09:13There we go.
09:14There was one.
09:15I'd like it just to be a little bit softer and a little less body movement as well.
09:21But, yeah, for most people, most of the time, it's going to be fine.
09:25They're going to enjoy that 4.5 seconds in order to 62 time.
09:29It's written on the back, yes.
09:31They're going to enjoy that occasionally.
09:32You can do a little squirt every now and again, just to remind you that you're in a quite fun electric car.
09:39But, yeah, I just wish it would go a little bit further.
09:46That said, this is a really nice cabin environment.
09:52I do like it very much.
09:54So, the BYD Sea Lion 7.
09:57What I haven't mentioned yet is pricing.
09:59So, there are three models.
10:01One is just over £46,000 for the smaller battery.
10:05You'll go about 300, just over 300 miles.
10:07There's a middle one, which has all-wheel drive with that same battery.
10:11I think that's around £52,000.
10:12And there's this one, the super-fast one with the bigger battery, does 312 miles.
10:18That costs just under £59,000, which is quite a lot of money.
10:23So, yeah, part of my verdict is this car is a bit too expensive and doesn't go far enough.
10:28But, it's a really high-quality thing.
10:31I love the tech.
10:32There's loads of space inside.
10:34And it's a bit different.
10:35And as far as electric cars are concerned, we do like different, don't we?
10:40Is it going to be a challenger for the Tesla Model Y?
10:43Let's wait and see.
10:45But for some people who don't want to buy a Tesla for reasons that we won't go into,
10:49the BYD does offer you an interesting alternative.
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