BYD Sealion 7 SUV (2024 – ) Electric review

The Sealion 7 costs more than the newly updated Tesla Model Y and, while it’s still cheaper than the more premium Polestar 4, the BYD looks rather steep at first glance. However, there are versions of the Ford Capri and Peugeot E-3008 in a similar ballpark and the Sealion 7 is considerably more powerful if bragging rights matter to you. Moreover, BYD is offering some competitive finance options to help sweeten the deal. As with all electric cars, running costs should be reasonable, particularly if you are able to charge at home. Additionally, company car drivers will benefit from the lower Benefit In Kind. The rear-wheel drive car version has an official WLTP range of just under 300 miles and this increases slightly for the all-wheel drive models with a bigger battery. When you do need to charge though it shouldn’t take too long, with BYD claiming it can go from 10 to 80 per cent in as little as 24 minutes.

Despite being a new player compared to legacy manufacturers, BYD has seen a rapid growth in sales over recent years and its background in battery technology is certainly reassuring. To increase peace of mind the Sealion 7 comes with a six-year manufacturer warranty with a separate eight years of cover for the battery and motors. However, when we first drove the Sealion 7 in Germany four of the cars on at the event weren’t working which wasn’t the most promising first impression. On our second drive of the Sealion 7 in the UK things ran more smoothly, though we would still be cautious of BYD’s claim you can leave your Sealion 7 parked up for months and it will still start without issue.

The Sealion 7 comes with nine airbags, plus a suite of standard safety systems using radar and cameras to monitor your surroundings. This includes blind-spot detection, lane departure warnings and emergency braking systems. All good in theory but we found the adaptive cruise control to be rather twitchy in its attempts to keep us centred in our lane and the emergency braking was at one point unexpectedly triggered in a busy town by a car in a side road, so there's still room for improvement. All-wheel drive models also gain a system to control the amount of power allocated to each wheel helping to improve stability. As is increasingly common in modern cars, most functions are accessed via the giant central touch-screen. Although things like heating controls are pinned to a shortcut bar at the bottom and you can change the temperature by using three fingers to scroll up and down, the graphics are small and fiddly to use on the move. For this reason, along with the accompanying scolding from the driver attention monitor, we’ve docked a couple of points from our safety score. However, the Sealion 7 uses a special Blade Battery which is integrated into the body of the car designed to give more protection should the worse happen.

There are three levels of trim available on the Sealion 7 starting with rear-wheel Comfort grade and adding all-wheel drive for Design and top of the range Excellence models. All trims come with luxuries such as electric front seats, a heated steering wheel and heated outer seats in the back, while the Excellence cars swap vegan leather for the real thing. It all looks plush from a distance but, up close, cheap materials on the door handles and harsh plastics on some of the buttons end the illusion. There is undoubtedly a good amount of space with a flat floor in the back allowing for ample legroom, and there’s also decent size storage spaces and a large boot if you remove its false floor. Under the bonnet you will find a front storage space (or ‘frunk’ in the EV vernacular) with enough room for cables or a small suitcase. Out on the road things felt fairly smooth and quiet, though the sheer length of the car gives the Sealion 7 a large turning circle, making some manoeuvres a multi-step process.

The Sealion 7 is packed with the latest tech and an array of features, including a crystal-clear sound system, impressively intuitive voice control functionality, a 360-degree camera and a massive panoramic roof. All models get BYD’s signature rotating central infotainment screen, with its party piece transformation from landscape to portrait. You also get Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) capability allowing you to charge up other devices from the battery and a heat pump to improve battery efficiency in colder weather as standard. Moving up the Design trim will get you red brake calipers, and range-topping Excellence grade adds a head-up display projecting driving information onto the windscreen.

Entry level Sealion 7s come with rear-wheel drive and around 300 horsepower, but the top two grades have all-wheel drive and up to 530 horsepower. We tested the latter and its straight-line acceleration was undeniably impressive though the sheer weight of the car meant it fell short of feeling sporty. The Sealion 7 is user friendly but doesn’t offer a particularly engaging driving experience. There are four driving modes – Eco, Normal, Sport and Snow – plus two levels of regenerative braking you can select using toggles on the central console. While we didn’t notice much difference between High and Standard braking mode, changing the driving modes does alter the amount of braking regeneration. However, even in Eco modes it's a long way off the ‘one-pedal driving’ we’ve enjoyed in other electric cars. BYD has made a deliberate decision to prioritise performance over range, though during our test the Sealion 7 averaged a reasonable three miles per kWh. While we haven’t driven the less powerful Comfort grade Sealion 7 we suspect this may provide a better blend of comfort and range if you can forego the rapid 4.5-second 0-62 mph time.