BYD Sealion 7 review

At face value the BYD Sealion 7 has a lot going for it. It’s distinctive inside and out, seems well-built and well-trimmed, is packed with equipment, and has plenty of space inside. Actually drive it though and some of that sheen quickly wears off, with average ride and handling, some refinement issues, and so-so efficiency – even on paper. It’s also expensive to insure and some of the electronic safety tech can be frustrating. A decent car in isolation, but this class is full of similarly priced and ultimately more talented alternatives.

Details, specs and alternatives

BYD likes its aquatic creature names, with the new Sealion 7 joining the Seal and Dolphin in the manufacturer’s UK lineup (we’ll just ignore the unrelated Atto 3 for now…). But the Sealion 7 shares more than the first four letters of its name with the Seal saloon – it rides on the same platform and shares electrical architecture with it too. It’s essentially an SUV version of that car, unlike the brand’s other SUV, the confusingly-named Seal U, which is unrelated and also comes in hybrid variants.

With a coupe-style roofline, it’s pitched at the same customers as cars like the Skoda Enyaq Coupe, Cupra Tavascan, and Kia EV6, and many more besides – a talented bunch that show just how much this new arrival is up against. Most are more adept at balancing ride and handling than the BYD, and the likes of the Kia (and its Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Genesis GV60 equivalents) outstride it on range.

UK pricing is yet to be confirmed, but the range starts from around £45,000 for the smallest battery and Comfort trim, stepping up by £5,000 for the Design AWD, and a similar hike for the Excellence AWD. The Sealion 7 certainly isn’t cut-priced in the usual Chinese vein. Equipment levels are competitive though, with all models featuring everything from that large rotating touchscreen, to double glazing, vehicle-to-load capability, a near-endless list of electronic safety gizmos, and a heat pump.

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Anything over 4 miles per kilowatt hour from an electric car is generally considered pretty good. So the fact the Sealion 7 uses a sizeable battery of 91.3kWh to cover a so-so 311 miles, or 3.4mi/kWh, is a little disappointing. 

Though it’s not quite as bad as our own driving average of 2mi/kWh which, despite including some stretches of Autobahn on the German launch event, is well below par even for a large and heavy SUV. At that efficiency, range would be little more than 180 miles. With rear-wheel drive only, the 82.5kWh pack in the entry-level Comfort may fare better, though its range starts lower to begin with, at 298 miles.

A standard-fit heat pump should at least keep efficiency consistent, whether hot or cold, and having vehicle-to-load ability to charge external devices is handy too. Charging, meanwhile, is handled by a 150kW charger in 82.5kWh battery models, and a 230kW charger in the Excellence with its bigger battery – a 10-80% top-up in the former should take around 32 minutes, dropping to 24 minutes for the Excellence.

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We’re hoping owners experience better efficiency than we did on the launch event, because even if you charge primarily at home on cheaper overnight tariffs, it’ll add unnecessarily to your energy bills. Assuming you hit BYD’s target figures, the 91.3kWh model would cost just over £8 to charge from 0-100% on a typical 9p/kWh overnight tariff.

On a rapid charger though, with fees of up to 75p/kWh, a 10-80% charge (about 64kWh of electricity) would be £48. That’s pretty expensive for 230-odd miles of range, and it looks even worse if you replicate our 2mi/kWh figure, where your 48 quid would only get you 135 miles of range. In cost equivalence, that’s like a petrol car doing just 18mpg – not a particularly appealing prospect.

BYD offers a six-year/93,750-mile warranty (if that sounds odd, it works out roughly to a more sensible 150,000km), and the battery and electric motor get eight years of coverage. Servicing, like many EVs, should be relatively simple and inexpensive too, but insurance might cost a few bob – the Sealion 7 can be found in groups 48-50, depending on trim level.

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The Sealion 7 is offered in two outputs. The Comfort gets a 308bhp rear-mounted motor, while both Design and Excellence models pair that with a front motor, for all-wheel drive, and a 522bhp power figure that wouldn’t look out of place in a Porsche. If the Comfort is brisk, at 6.7 seconds from 0-62mph – quicker than the most accelerative Audi A5 (S models excepted) – the AWD cars really are rapid, with their 4.5-second 0-62mph times.

While performance is as strong as you’d expect from these figures, the driving experience doesn’t quite match the promise. We’ve noticed some motor whine that most other EVs are able to tune out, and while road noise is well contained, wind noise from the A-pillars and door mirrors is much more apparent.

The suspension doesn’t meet our expectations either. The ride quality can be a little sharp, but despite this firmness it can’t quite control the car’s 2.5-tonne mass over undulations either, getting a bit floaty. Both the steering and the brakes are a little sudden in their responses too – the steering is quick, but a bit too twitchy at higher speeds and devoid of feedback, while the brakes can be grabby and inconsistent; not ideal given the car’s performance.

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The Sealion 7’s interior certainly has the wow-factor when you first open the door. Like other BYDs, there’s a rotating central touchscreen, and while this still looks and feels like a bit of a gimmick, the rest of the cabin impresses with both its quality and its presentation. The swooping dash design is attractive, the driver’s display neatly integrated into the same panel that flows onto the passenger side, and materials and quality are both a step above other BYDs. Throw in a splash of light from the panoramic glass roof, a 12-speaker Dynaudio stereo, and USB-C charging ports everywhere, and there’s a lot here to like.

Like the Sealion 7’s driving behaviour though, the cabin doesn’t quite stick the landing. The driving position is a little high for our tastes, enough to be offputting and a little cramped-feeling for taller drivers, while the steering wheel is set at an odd, bus-like angle.

Likewise, while the rotating 15.6-inch display is clear and responsive, BYD has hidden too many frequently-used controls in there; gesture control for heating or fan speed is still not as intuitive as proper knobs and buttons. The native satellite navigation system works well, but thankfully there’s also Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, which will be the default for most owners, we suspect.

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Electric vehicles tend to make quite efficient use of cabin space, and Chinese ones to an even greater extent, so it’s no surprise to find that there’s plenty of room to stretch out in the back of the Sealion 7. You can adjust the backrests for even more comfort too, while the glass roof means it feels airy, though the car’s patchy ride quality is just as noticeable as it is in the front.

Rear seat space hasn’t come at the expense of boot volume, and while 520 litres isn’t industry-leading, the squared-off shape is appreciated, as is the large tailgate aperture. There’s space under the boot floor (or in the small frunk) for charging cables, and the cabin as a whole is packed with cubby holes, including a pair of cavernous cupholders in the centre console and some usefully-sized door bins.

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Euro NCAP hasn’t yet sent a Sealion 7 to its doom in the name of science and safety, so we have no star rating to report as yet, though given BYD’s otherwise fine record in this area (five stars for both the Seal and the smaller Atto 3), we’d expect similar from the Sealion 7.

The Sealion 7 certainly has a very long list of electronic safety features working in its favour, keeping various aspects of braking, lane-keeping, and accident avoidance in check, though not for the first time with a BYD, some of the Sealion 7’s functions can be intrusive and distracting in normal driving, feeling like they haven’t been calibrated for UK road conditions. Turning them off is a bit of a faff too, requiring a deep dive into the touchscreen.