By Otsile Kadiege

BYD is a Chinese car manufacturer which entered the South African automotive market last year with its debut model being the Atto 3. Since then, the automaker has been rather quiet and recently quietly introduced a new affordable EV called the Dolphin. We recently joined BYD South Africa in the ‘City of Gold’ for brand insights and a ride & drive in their cars including the new Seal sedan which recently debuted at the Festival of Motoring.

Sleek exterior design

The South African automotive market is being bombarded with SUVs, leaving sedans somewhat out in the cold. Enter the BYD Seal. It’s a sleek, futuristic-looking, fastback-style mid-size electric sedan. Exterior highlights include slim LED headlights with integrated boomerang-shaped LED daytime running lights, a closed front-end an another set of LED daytime running lights on the lower front bumper.

In profile, the Seal range is fitted with 19-inch alloy wheels as standard. Other highlights include flush door handles, a bommerang-shaped aero piece on the front fenders and sharp creases along the doors. At the rear, the Seal gets a prominent rear diffuser, slim LED taillights which look similar to the ones on a Bentley Continental, and an integrated LED light strip.

Overall, the 4.8 metre long Seal is an absolute looker all-round. Kudos to the design team for making it not look like an electric sedan.

Posh interior

Hopping aboard the Seal, one is greeted by a premium cabin littered with luxurious amenities like sporty quilted leather seats which are comfortable and supportive. Sitting on the pilot’s chair with 8-way power adjustability, you’ll be faced with a configurable digital instrument cluster and a leather wrapped multifunctional steering with a shortcut button to rotate the massive 15.6-inch centre display with impressive graphics and user-friendliness, and it also features Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity.

The cabin is surrounded by 12 Dynaudio speakers which sound great. In fact this audio system is the best we’ve ever heard in a Chinese car. Other highlights include a fixed panoramic roof, ample storage spaces and USB ports, a wireless charger, a head-up display unit with decent graphics, pulsating ambient lighting and an NFC section on the centre console to start/activate the vehicle using a card given to a customer by BYD.

The Seal has a commendable luggage capacity of 400 litres. Should you need to store more stuff then you can try to fit them in the sizeable 50 litre ‘frunk’ underneath the bonnet.

Overall, the cabin is a great place to be in and we believe one can do lengthy trips without putting much strain on the body thanks to its comfortable seats and serene cabin. One of the negatives we picked up was its fixed glass roof. Despite having a shade insert, the strong African sun lets in too much light and heat into the cabin.

Safety and driver assistance systems

As standard, the Seal range comes with a raft of driver assistance features. These include a total of 9 airbags, front and rear seat belts pretensioners, ISOFIX child seat anchor points, a 360-degree camera system, 4 rear parking sensors, rear cross traffic alert, front cross traffic alert, blind-spot detection, lane departure warning, lane departure prevention, adaptive cruise control, hill hold control, predictive collision warning, traffic sign recognition and door open warning to list a few.

Performance

Locally, the Seal is available in two flavors – the RWD single motor Extended Range Lux with 230kW/360Nm and the dual motor AWD Performance Lux which churns out 390kW/670Nm. The latter will accelerate from zero to 100km/h in a brisk 3.8 seconds while the former will do the same in 5.9 seconds

Both derivatives make use of BYD’s Blade Battery pack with a capacity of 82.56kWh. This avails a claimed 570km and 520km on the Extended Range Lux and the AWD Performance Lux, respectively.

The drive

We collected our 390kW/670Nm electric steed from Rivonia and drove to Vaal at the opulent Pont De Val. Much of the route was on highway where the Seal impressed us with its cabin insulation a pace when overtaking, although it didn’t feel mind-bending fast due its heft and three other passengers onboard. Its double-wishbone (front) and multi-link (rear) suspension setup cushioned the blows of imperfect roads.

We will share a comprehensive test drive review once we get a unit on test.

Pricing

BYD Seal Lux Ext. Range RWD – R999,900

BYD Seal Lux Performance AWD – R1,199,900