Long-term test: BYD Sealion 7

Verdict

Chinese powerhouse BYD isn’t satisfied with just offering better value than some of the competition with its new Sealion 7 – it wants to offer the best. For now, its numbers suggest it has to work hard. Time to see if it grows on us, or whether BYD is being a little too ambitious with its largest all-electric SUV.

• Mileage: 588 miles
• Efficiency: 2.9mi/kWh

If 2025 proved one thing, it’s that Chinese car brands are deadly serious about becoming the biggest player in global sales. But despite having driven the vast majority of the new offerings on sale in the UK, no Chinese-branded model has really taken my fancy so far. 

This isn’t about brand snobbery or politics, but the fact that Chinese cars often feel more like a product than a car, so often missing the soul that turns a car from a tool into something worth cherishing. So to challenge this notion, I’ve got my hands on China’s biggest manufacturer’s largest EV for the next few months to try to convince me otherwise. 

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This is the BYD Sealion 7, a chunky electric SUV with a sloping roofline and a high-performance powertrain. It can be a little hard to grasp just how big it is from the pictures, but the 7 is around 250mm longer than a Volkswagen ID.5 or Skoda Enyaq Coupé – two cars that, despite this discrepancy, act as key rivals across most other metrics. 

BYD says the Sealion 7 is all about breaking with clichéd notions of ‘cheap’, and it certainly does that when you read the price. Our car, in base Comfort trim, starts at £47,000. Its £1,100 of optional white paint results in a £48,100 on-the-road price.

Like lots of Chinese cars, it’s not short of equipment. Comfort trim comes with a 15.4-inch touchscreen, panoramic roof and heated and cooled front seats, with the rear bench and steering wheel also heated. A high-spec 12-speaker Dynaudio stereo, 360-degree camera system with sensors all-round and 19-inch wheels complete the kit highlights.

In fact, the only things this version lacks are the head-up display, real leather seats and larger 20-inch wheels found on higher specs. But there are a few elements missing across the range that could be expected at this price point. Matrix or adaptive headlights beyond just automatic full-beams are a notable miss, as is any form of massaging seats or autonomous parking assistance. 

In contrast to the upper two dual-motor models, Comfort comes with a single, rear-mounted motor producing 308bhp. It derives its power from an 82.5kWh battery pack, and BYD quotes a 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds. That ‘Blade’ battery is capable of up to 150kW charging speeds, which should get the battery from 10-80 per cent in around 32 minutes. Range is quoted at 300 miles.

But hold on a second. Aren’t high-end Chinese cars meant to be breaking the internet with their incredible charge speeds, performance and technology? A Volkswagen ID.5 isn’t just £10k cheaper, but it’ll also do an extra 45 miles on a charge and match the BYD for performance and top-up speeds. The flagship Ultimate model ups the range and charging to 329 miles and 230kW, but at £59,000 it’s hot on the heels of BMW’s new iX3 with its 500 miles and 400kW peak.

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You sit high in the BYD’s driver’s seat, and the relatively low dashboard only accentuates this. The sloping roofline and tiny rear window don’t give it a particularly airy feeling – but the panoramic roof helps. 

Connectivity has its highs and lows. The screen is relatively fast to react and has no problem maintaining a solid wireless connection for Apple CarPlay. But simple tasks are buried in multiple menus. You can also rotate the screen in a typical BYD way, but I find this utterly pointless. 

We’ll go into more detail about how the Sealion drives and the sort of efficiency we’re getting over the course of the next few months, but at the moment it’s doing around 2.9 miles per kWh. This is less than what BYD quotes and is the result of largely urban driving so far, but that’s not such a bad number considering the recent cold weather.

The BYD will have to prove it’s worth the ambitious price tag by driving, cosseting and reassuring us to the levels we expect of its legacy-branded rivals that offer very similar, if not even better value. Only time will tell.

*Insurance quote from AA (0800 107 0680) for a 42-year-old in Banbury, Oxon, with three points.

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