BYD Dolphin Surf (2025 - ) Electric review

As the latest electric car to dip below the £19K threshold, the Dolphin Surf is as cheap as its name is daft. And it’ll be cheap to insure. Of course, the usual EV benefits apply, those being that it’s cheap to tax as a company car, and extremely cost-effective to “fuel” if you’re on an EV tariff at home with low-cost off-peak electricity. That said, the sub-£19K car has a 30kWh battery that will have you connected to a cable more frequently than a bungee instructor. Its official range is just 137 miles. The battery is efficient, though; during our test drive, which, granted, was entirely inside the M25 and never strayed above 40mph, the BYD returned 5.2 miles per kWh. At that rate, even with the smaller battery, your range will be around 150 miles. The 43kWh version with a 200-mile official range is, of course, more convenient, but for that you’ll pay £22,000.

BYD is knocking out electric cars – or “new energy vehicles”, as the company calls them – at a phenomenal rate. Which is to say that it has plenty of expertise, rather than “it’s making them too quickly for adequate quality control, like that time Dudley Moore automated the factory in Santa Claus The Movie and ended up ruining Christmas for millions of kids with substandard toys.” The company’s “blade battery” tech, developed in-house with a focus on durability, is used across all BYD’s cars. And while we haven’t heard of any major reliability flaws, it’s also true to say that there’s not much local data because the company has only been in the UK since early 2023. Still, the Dolphin Surf comes with a six-year, 94,000-mile warranty, and an eight-year one for the battery. That’s long (and far) by most standards.

No official crash test results for the Dolphin Surf just yet, but we hear that BYD is expecting a solid four-star rating when Euro NCAP eventually puts its crash test dummies into one. This feels logical, because despite being little, the car comes with airbags all the way around the cabin, automatic emergency braking (which is mandated by law, like), automatic high beam control, and adaptive cruise control. It also has a jobsworth-y form of driver monitoring that scans your eyes like a suspicious passport control officer so that it can tell you to keep looking at the road ahead. Sadly, the fact that virtually all the car’s functions are controlled on the small-ish touchscreen, with its small-ish icons, means this feature gets regular use.

It’s comfortable enough. It’s very clear that this is not an especially sophisticated or complex car, but it’s also evident that most of its development time has been done in packed urban environments (or in a facility designed to mimic that). The suspension is soft, the body rolls a lot, the steering feels light, and the brake pedal feels spongy but makes it easy to stop smoothly. All this means that it deals with ‘town stuff’ – rubbish road surfaces, endless potholes and speed bumps, basically – with real comfort. It smooths everything over. And the visibility is good because you sit high, and it’s quiet, and it gets from zero to 20mph with much more enthusiasm than something with a tiny petrol engine would. All these things equate to an experience that makes for a very agreeable town car. Including for those in the back, because the Dolphin Surf has much more rear space for heads and legs than you might assume. The boot is decent too, its 308-litre rear hole identical by volume to the Dacia Spring’s. BYD claims there are 20 storage spaces in the cabin, though we could only find about a dozen. It’s a thin car too, which means only two rear seats, but also that you always seem millimetres away from literally rubbing shoulders.

The Dolphin Surf's interior feels like stepping back into the early 2000s, but in a quite charming sort of way. There’s a tangible sense of cost-cutting in the cabin – albeit at this price, that’s obviously true – but you do feel like BYD could have done a slightly better job of hiding it, in places. Add a little design sparkle. Maybe lighten more of the materials, or make the two displays look less like old Android tablets glued to an old Suzuki. In fairness, the two elbow pads are soft-touch, the central touchscreen spins 90 degrees so you can use it either portrait or landscape (as per all BYDs), and it is well-equipped. Rear parking sensors, keyless entry and start, adaptive cruise control, and the bright green launch colour are all standard fit. And definitely do get a bright colour. This thing looks super boring in black because lots of the design detail gets lost in that colour, like the heavy sculpting at the side and the ‘floating’ roof bit behind the rear doors. Spec up to a Boost or a Comfort car (base spec is called Active) and aside from the bigger battery you’ll get stuff like alloy wheels, electric seat adjustment, wireless phone charging and heated front seats. Nice.

A three-pronged drivetrain choice means you can pick between a 30kWh battery with an 88 horsepower motor (not much range, not very quick), a 43kWh battery with the same motor (best range, not very quick), and a 43kWh battery with a 156 horsepower motor (good range, quite quick). They’re directly linked to the three trim levels (Active to Boost to Comfort), so it really depends what you want from your Dolphin Surf. If you’ll use it ONLY as your daily to-work-and-back town car, the base one will be perfectly adequate and very cost-effective. But we suspect you’ll have to spend a bit more if longer journeys are a regular possibility. Or the transport of multiple people. 11kW onboard charging is standard with both battery sizes, which means the car charges at that rate at the 22kW charger you’re likely to use at your workplace. Click here for an explanation of why that is, if you’re interested, but know that it’s a very useful convenience feature.