BYD Seal Review (2024-present)
Byd Seal cars for sale
4.0
Expert review
Pros
Genuine 300-mile range
Strong performance
Loads of standard equipment
Cons
Annoying infotainment system
Smaller boot than some rivals
Monthly finance deals not the most competitive
The CarGurus verdict
The BYD Seal is a really good all-round executive saloon. It’s good to drive, has a smart cabin, class-leading equipment levels and has enough range and charging speed to make it a very easy companion for high-mileage drivers.
However, it’s got stiff competition, too, and with the Tesla Model 3, Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Polestar 2 all charging more quickly and offering a similar range, not to mention costing less on monthly finance prices. If you can get a good deal, the Seal feels every bit the ‘proper’ executive electric vehicle. It’s BYD’s best car yet, and a promising sign of what’s to come.
What is the BYD Seal?
The BYD Seal is the third model to enter the UK market from the Chinese maker, after the BYD Atto 3 and BYD Dolphin: not bad considering that’s all happened within a year of the brand’s official UK launch in 2023.
Standing for Build Your Dreams, BYD is one of the biggest car brands in China, and globally it sold more electric cars than Tesla in 2023. So, while it’s still relatively unknown in the UK, it’s far from a start-up company. In fact, BYD has been established as one of the world’s biggest battery makers for decades now, and produces batteries for Apple, Tesla and many others, as well as for its own cars.
The new BYD Seal is an electric, mid-sized saloon that’s priced similarly to the Tesla Model 3, although at 4.8m long the Seal is a fraction longer (it actually splits the difference between the Model 3 and the Hyundai Ioniq 6). It’s a handsome car, the Seal, with bold detailing at either end and a low-slung roofline that give it the vibe of a shrunken-down Porsche Taycan.
An 82.5kWh battery gives the Seal a WLTP official range of up to 354 miles if you go for the rear-wheel-drive, 308bhp, single-motor variant. BYD claims 323 miles on the 523bhp dual-motor model. It also gets the BYD ‘Blade’ battery pack. This lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery tech uses cobalt-free battery chemistry, saving resources of critical rare earth metals. The Blade battery is also said to be very safe: the company hammered a nail through it at a global press conference to demonstrate that it won’t catch fire when pierced in this way.
With generous equipment and prices starting from under £46,000 (£49,000 for the AWD model), and warranty cover for six years or 93,750 miles, it’s not hard to see why the Seal could tempt new car buyers away from the Tesla Model 3.
How practical is it?
By the standards of compact saloons, the Seal’s practicality isn’t bad at all. There’s more rear legroom than you’ll find in the Tesla Model 3, plus you get rear charging ports for smartphones and other devices, and a centre armrest, The standard-fit panoramic roof makes it feel really light and airy without eating too much into headroom. Even taller adults will be reasonably comfortable in the back of the Seal for a long journey.
A 400-litre boot is on par with the Hyundai Ioniq 6, if a little short of the Model 3’s 425 litres, but we’d say that in practice the BYD is just as good for luggage space as its chief rivals. That’s because the boot space is deep and has useful hidden underfloor storage, plus there’s a ‘frunk’ space beneath the bonnet of the car that’s good for storing cables. The Polestar 2 is more practical still; it may have a smaller boot, but it’s got a much bigger and more practical hatchback opening despite its saloon looks.
If boot space is a priority, crossover or hatchback alternatives such as the Cupra Born and VW ID.3 are worth checking out, as are SUV alternatives like the Renault Scenic E-Tech and Kia Niro EV. Their bigger, hatchback boot openings make life a lot easier if you’ve got chunky stuff to lug about.
The driving position in the Seal is good, with a low-set seat and plenty of electric adjustment making it easy to get comfortable, although visibility to the rear is a bit limited. The interior finish is really great, with classy materials and a much more understated, European-style dashboard design than you’ll find in the whacky BYD Atto 3. The pale grey-blue interior colour may be a bit too marine-inspired for some, so it’s good that there’s a black interior finish on offer as well.
What’s it like to drive?
The BYD Seal is surprisingly good fun to drive, whether you go for the entry-level rear-wheel-drive Design RWD model or four-wheel-drive Excellence AWD variant. With 0-62mph times of 5.9sec and 3.8sec, respectively, outright pace from the electric motors certainly isn’t a problem, and the Seal also steers nicely, with fairly quick, predictable responses.
More than that, it turns keenly into corners and powers out nicely. Even the rear-wheel-drive model has good traction and feels secure in damp, greasy conditions, so don’t feel you need to go for the four-wheel drive just to get all-weather peace of mind.
Where the Seal does fall a bit short is in some of the pedal responses. Brake performance is okay, but you have to get used to the slightly inconsistent response and long travel of the pedal: it can feel like not much braking is happening initially, and then it will suddenly brake a bit more sharply than you intended. Throttle response is a touch sharp at times, too.
There are two brake recuperation modes in the Seal, but neither is the sort of one-pedal mode that you get in the Nissan Leaf, which lets you drive around without touching the brake pedal at all.
Still, the Seal has a pillowy ride comfort over undulations and bigger bumps, and makes for a really great, easy-going long distance companion, even if it does thump over sharp-edged potholes. Coarse surfaces can send some vibrations through the steering wheel, too, so while refinement is good, it’s not quite up there with the Hyundai Ioniq 6.
In fact, while the Seal is fun and very well sorted, we’d still say that the Kia EV6, Polestar 2 on its performance dampers, or a used Jaguar I-Pace (which you can get easily at these prices) has the edge if you’re after a really fun, posh electric car. Get yourself a test drive in each to see which you prefer.
Technology, equipment & infotainment
BYD doesn’t skimp on technology and equipment, and most of it is standard. Rather like Tesla, there aren’t any options beyond what colour paint and interior you want. That means that the (deep breath…) panoramic glass roof, head-up display, heated and ventilated electrically-adjustable seats, heated steering wheel, a 12-speaker sound system, leatherette upholstery, keyless entry, 360-degree parking camera, a variety of alloy wheel designs and five different body colours are all standard. It really is generously equipped in both specs, especially given that BYD also throws in its semi-autonomous drive mode with lane-change assist.
You even get a heat pump for boosting efficiency in cold weather, and vehicle-to-load charging, which lets you charge any electrical device from the car’s high-voltage battery.
If this were an equipment-only section, we’d give the Seal five stars as you really can’t knock the standard kit list, which is the same for the rear-wheel-drive Design and for the Excellence AWD.
However, there are some frustrations with the 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen. It’s not a bad interface, and has a good satnav system and charger search function, plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. However, it’s occasionally a bit laggy, and while the screen rotates to be either portrait or landscape, this ultimately feels like a bit of a gimmick. We found it better to just leave it in landscape mode so that it didn’t intrude on the view out of the car.
Even more annoying is that the screen’s menu layouts make it hard to access certain functions. You have to swipe up to get climate control, and then heated seats controls are another tap or two beyond that. Then, once there, the menu takes up the whole screen, and requires a few taps to get back to your nav, CarPlay or whatever else you were using before. It’s just a bit haphazard in the way the menus are arranged, and the voice control isn’t great, either; you’ll have much more luck getting a Tesla, Hyundai or Polestar to understand you.
BYD Seal running costs
The Seal is competitively priced, especially given the huge equipment levels, but it is disappointing that it’s not a bit better on PCP costs. As it is, the BYD costs a similar price on monthly terms to the BMW i4 (which is quite a bit better), and is therefore quite a bit pricier than the Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai Ioniq 6 on similar terms.
A full charge in the BYD Seal will cost roughly £25 if you’re paying 0.25p per kWh for your home electricity, or you can cut that cost by more than half if you can charge on a cheap overnight tariff. That makes the BYD usefully cheaper to run than efficient diesel alternatives, but remember that charging at public chargers is much more expensive. Most drivers only charge electric cars at public rapid chargers occasionally when on the odd longer drive, but if you use them a lot then it can make an electric car more expensive to ‘fuel’ than a petrol or diesel car.
BYD Seal reliability
It’s really too early to tell regards the BYD Seal’s reliability, as the vehicle is too new. However, the Blade battery technology has been around for a while and has been just as extensively tested as any electric car battery. BYD even states that it’s designed to last for 30 years. It’s backed up that claim with an eight-year, 125,000-mile battery warranty, while the rest of the vehicle is covered for six years or 93,750 miles.
- Real-world range in the BYD is good, and we saw 300 miles to a charge in the AWD car despite very cold conditions, so you may well get close to the 323-mile claimed range in the summer. Expect that to drop to around 270 miles of range on a winter run on the motorway, though. The more efficient, single-motor Seal should do a touch better, so expect more like 280-340 miles in real-world use.
- The BYD Seal can charge at up to 150kW, which is on a par with rivals from Volkswagen, if not as fast as the Tesla Model 3 or Kia EV6. It’s still good for a 20-80% charge in around 20 minutes. Plug into your 7kW home wallbox and you’ll have a full charge from nearly empty in around 13 hours.
- The Seal’s LED headlights are not the fully adaptive ‘Matrix’ lights that most rivals offer (albeit often optionally). Instead, the Seal gets automatic high beam headlights, which simply switch the lights into high- or low-beam depending on whether the car senses other vehicles. It’s not a great system, and it’s rather prone to dazzling other road users, so we found it much more relaxing to just turn it off (which again is quite a few layers into the screen’s menus, but can be done) and enjoy having full control of the bright LED lights.
- If you want the best value: Go for the BYD Seal Design. It’s good to drive, and a decent price for the equipment and performance that you’re getting.
- If you want the best company car: We’d still stick with the Design, as company car tax rates are starting to rise from April 2025, so while the BYD will cost buttons in Benefit-in-Kind tax until then, you’ll start to notice the additional costs of going for the rapid Excellence AWD in the years following. More than that, the Design model is more than fast enough for UK roads.
- If you want the best high-mileage commuter: Again, stick with the Design model as it gets the longer range of 354 miles.
- If you want the best family car: Guess what? We’d still go for the Design, tempting though it might be to upgrade to the Excellence AWD for its additional performance. Having said that, if you’re buying on PCP finance then you’ll find the Excellence AWD isn’t much more on monthly costs, so if you’re a keen driver or are concerned about icy and wintery conditions then it could be worth making the small jump up to the all-wheel-drive Seal.
