Fastback to the future: BYD Seal AWD Excellence

So There I was in the car of the future, or at least the day before yesterday. BYD (“Build Your Dreams”) seal, Slightly silly name; Very serious car. cutting edge for Electric Car, It has everything, as you’d expect from truly giant Chinese auto companies these days, and even now BYD and its founder Wang Chuanfu nowhere near as famous Tesla And Elon MuskThey are about neck-and-neck in total battery electric car production, i.e. the two largest in the world.

As I say, they are the future. True to its name, the seal has a sleek, curved shape similar to that of an agile aquatic mammal, and is predator-level fast.

The full set of safety features rings, beeps, and pings a lot, but I’d rather have that than a speeding ticket or a more serious problem. It virtually drives itself, too, good, and in my example the all-wheel drive, up-to-date technology provided supercar acceleration for a comfort-oriented ride. There’s also hit-and-miss voice control, (which isn’t foolproof in any car yet).

As innovative and enjoyable as this spacious and unique five-seat executive saloon is, the high-performance Seal for a long time made me feel like I was stuck in the 1980s. Absolute Radio Absolute 80s DAB station, which was one of the very few stations that worked on the in-car entertainment system, and the only one that was remotely acceptable (as I have no interest in worshiping the Almighty). step).

Now, I’m a little stuck in the 1980s myself, it wasn’t such a terrible difficulty, and was limited to “biggest songs of the best decade”. matt berry Doing identification. Obviously, this was simply a glitch in the transition from China and could have been fixed by someone more intelligent than me fine-tuning the DAB, but it was a decidedly inconsistent experience in an otherwise nearly flawless drive.

I have to say, it’s a lovely vehicle, and I was very surprised by the positive reactions it received. Unlike the early days of Japanese and then Korean imports, sometimes with their ugly looks and uncharacteristic badges, people’s immediate impressions of this new, unfamiliar Chinese brand tend to be to ridicule it or treat it as a means of control. was not. Chinese Communist PartyRather one should work with an open mind and appreciate it.

It’s good looking, if perhaps in a derivative way, with elements of retro. Hyundai Ioniq 6General Contemporary Mercedes-Benz And Tesla about it, but the mix works well. It’s all very tasty, with high-quality ingredients and double glazing, and it’s clearly highly refined, with only some barely audible hum from outside to disturb your peace.

The party trick is the large, 15-inch touchscreen, which rotates from landscape to portrait format on your command. The big advantage is that in upright mode it makes it very easy to follow the Satnav map and its directions, and complements the head-up display nicely.

To be fair, the sills don’t have that indefinable “waft” quality that you get in equivalent Mercedes-Benz saloons, but then again they’ve been honing automotive technology since 1886, and BYD only got into the car-making game in 2005 (Logically enough, having started making batteries).

Although they sold some early electric taxis nearly a decade ago, BYD has only been in the UK for a year, and the Seal is currently the largest offering. It weighs over two tonnes, mainly due to its massive battery pack, and access to fairly fast charging is essential.

The rear badge reads “3.8s” which sounds like a 1967 Jaguar, but, I think, this refers to its zero to 60 mph speed; Or at least that’s what I think it’s supposed to mean. Despite all this, it has a range of about 300 miles, giving a return of about 3.3 miles per kilowatt hour – not that bad, say. Latest Hyundai Kona,

What anyone need to worry about about their pet seal is not just the car or its unsatisfactory radio, but geopolitics and the undeniable tensions between China and the West.

If they stop us from benefiting from quality Chinese BYD products, such as their cars, electric buses and solar panels, it will be our loss, and it will be very difficult for us to get by. achieve decarbonization, You could probably even say that our fate will be sealed.