BYD Seal - New Zealand review

okay so there's not really many cars out there that make me excited cuz I'm dead inside except for [Applause] this yes the byd seal is finally here I've been waiting a long time to get my hands on this thing it's available in three flavors three different ranges three different prices it's all there on the screen but look at it what a magnificent piece of art on Wheels let's take it for a drive and what a place to be yeah sure I might be crawling along in Orland traffic on a Friday night right now but it doesn't matter because I am cocooned in luxury I mean look at the interior design it is snazzy everything's refined everything's cool the stitching work looks fantastic the design is sweet even the clanks on things like the center console are as solid as Grandma's advice one thing I do like though and it's a bit narcissistic but I quite like that this car turns here it's quite a novelty for me speaking of turning this thing also has a 15.6 in central display which is touchscreen controls everything everything and it turns check this out how cool is that and of course now I can see the built-in map that has realtime traffic information on it honestly this car has everything and I should add that right now I'm sitting on a ventilated seat with my electronic lumbar control set just right and it means the Netherlands are being chilled to Perfection one thing I have to keep in mind though is that even now in economy mode if I had to press the accelerator just a little bit it is evident that this is a high performance car there's three flavors of this car I mentioned at the start of the video this is the high performance one this is the one with all the power which is utterly useless right now in Oakland Motorway traffic but we will get a chance to use it I promise I really do love the fact though that byd have brought back a sedan because lately all the cars you can buy are all crossovers you know small tall hatchbacks and those are great they're functional they're useful they're sensible Dependable no as other words that end an ible but this well this is fun B have taken a chance and made a truly Sleek low slung family car to to be fair the average age of the new byd seal buy right at this moment is the older gentleman which is me but that just means they have good taste right wait a minute as we settle into the journey I think I found something I'm not in love with and that is the interior color it is black and gray and honestly I'm not a big fan of black and gray Interiors I've lived with those for 30 years please give us some color I know the byd seal is available in more interior options the one I saw at field days was the first time I saw one of these cars that had the faintest power blue interior combo that was just so gently different I really really liked it fell in love with that interior so byd if you're watching this please please offer other color options for the interior for the New Zealand Market please as for the exterior design though well just look at it it is in one word sleek everything about it is Sleek I mean you start with the headlights it's got those w u headlights then of course you go back into the the Sills even have details added to them then of course there's this door indentations in the side they look pretty cool of course the roof line sweeps right back as for Wheels the dynamic version the entry level version comes with 18in wheels as standard however the premium and performance versions they come with 19in wheels and look at the wheels on this beasty kind of like that arachnid style really cool that gives you a clue along with the ventilated disc brakes that this is a car not to be messed with I assume I don't know we're stuck in Oakland how would we know hang on a second why am I driving this car has self-driving software let me check it on all right just as easy as pressing that button on the steering wheel I set my Max Speed to I don't know 90 it's never going to get to that and I take my foot off the accelerator now will this stop look at that how smooth is it oh that would that's that I would have stopped like that ah but is it going to oh look at this it's doing it all I don't have to get frustrated at all all right let's turn on the lane keeping just rest my fingers on the stair steering wheel ready to take over at any SEC gosh byd's Come such a long way oh I know this car is out of my budget but I'm going to buy a lottery tickets cuz this feels good no no stay objective stay objective okay don't worry I'm going to put on my hat of impartiality and I'll find things to hate very soon I promise also I'm sick of driving and traffic so in the next scene with a click of my fingers you're going to see me doing highway speed and just like that we're on the yut expressway doing 106k an hour We're on Co chip roads but the interior noise is very low it's really well insulated this machine and that's great because as a family car you want quietness on New Zealand's course roads let's talk family car though let's look at space starting with the front and if you lift the Bonnet under the Bonnet there is a 50 L Fartman just great for potatoes or charging cables moving into the cockpit both the front driver seat and passenger seat are electronically adjustable this one also has lumbar support electronically adjustable as well which is just in the right spot of course it's ventilated as well and they're both seated Heats as well and of course this one also has a heated steering wheel in the back however I mean look how much leg room this is this is a deceptively large car you might think that because it's a Sleek looking sedan it's small no there's lots of leg room owing to its 2.9 M wheelbase honestly there's so much room in this thing I should add though that at 5'10 the head room just above my head in the back there's only really about an inch so I wouldn't want to be more than 6 ft tall and riding the back in this car also the foot room is a little bit snug but there is bucket loads of leg room opening up the boot however which can be done with a key you'll find 400 L of space plenty of room for golf clubs and if you drop the seats down there is suddenly enough room for a pasty potato Enthusiast to lie all the way down yes you could fit a mattress in the back and take this car camping this car next to me slowing down and speeding up and they're both twisting their heads to look at it it's a real head turn of this car now all three versions of this car are dripping with technology like even the entry-level version has more gadgets than a Swiss Army iPhone steroids but this one the top spec one goes a little bit further it's got a long list of gadgets like memory seats and heated steering wheel heads up display all that sort of stuff but all of them come with lots of stuff as standard for example they all come with a vehicle to load adapter that's this device you plug into the side of the car turns this car into a giant four-wheel battery Bank great if you get a power cut through climate related disasters of which there's a growing number so if you want to get the heads up on that you want to make an actual positive difference towards fighting climate change join ecotricity ecotricity is New Zealand only certified climate positive electricity providers so if you're tired of waiting for governments to act just act yourself and save some money while you're doing it because all of the electricity ecotricity supplies is from wind hydro and solar no dirty coal no expensive gas nothing like that so sign up at ecotricity doc. NZ join the good fight leave the planet in a better place for your kids and save some cash on the side there is literally no downside go to ecotricity doco NZ couple of mouse clicks you join the good fight you can't get any better of a sales pitch than that no downsides go on click on it what are you waiting for now all these cars come with particulate mattera filters built in but the seal goes a step further it has a cn95 filter as well which means that it's not letting aerosols through it's blocking tiny dirt particles and even some viruses so this is like a health clinic on Wheels on the subject of Wellness let's talk safety and this car is ridiculously safe if you look at the list of safety options there on this fstar safety rated car it just goes on and on and on and on plus they've also made the battery part of the car's structural integrity and you might be thinking well hang on that that doesn't sound like a good idea wait till you see this footage I stole from byd which they crash a seal into a barrier and then they do the exact same thing on the other side after it's crashed and then they took the battery out of that crash car which had been deformed slightly and were able to stick it into another byd seal and just drive away that's how safe it is plus if you look at this other footage that I stole I've been stealing a lot of footage for this video you'll see that they've harpooned a typical nmc electric car battery and it got a little spicy as you can see but then they did the exact same thing to the byd blade batteries that they use in these cars and look at that they've harpooned the battery they basically shot it and it keeps on going the temperature barely changes the voltage barely changes you can shoot your battery pack don't but you can shoot your battery pack and keep on driving you can't do that with a tank of gas at least not according to the movies but now that we're into the open road I'm going to put it into normal mode take it out of Eco I'll save sport mode for later stay tuned but right now let's talk more Gadget cuz it doesn't end there it's got a very T likee feature that I like it's got two wireless phone charging ports right here in front of the driver of course it also has androgynous Auto and appalation carplay which is Wireless as well very very good liking that of course this being a byd it also has the famous 360° Bird's Eye camera system which I can turn on put the button on the steering wheel and look at oh look at that we got a bird's eye view here and you can even change it to 3D while driving oh that's ridiculous that's probably not safe but I won't look I'll just spin it and I know without looking that it spins so so effortlessly fast look how little lag there is on this thing honestly this changes position faster than a teenager's mood swings and one other thing this car has is child presence detection so if you are forgetful like me it will remind you that you've left your kid in the back seat which is good for idiots like me cuz if I had kids I'd be leaving one at every rapid charger and on the subject of charging if you were to charge this car at home using a wallmounted 7 Kow charger like this one I have in my garage then you're looking at about 8 hours for a full charge what about DC charging speeds however let's say you're on a road trip well for that we got to go to a DC rapid charger well right behind me is a 300 kilowatt hyper rapid charger from charget charget has hundreds of Rapid charges and a growing number of hyper rapid charges all around New Zealand and right now I've got the seal plugged into this hyper rer charger which can handle 300 KW but this is the Ares heel this is the big downside I found CF far of the SE or at least the one I've got is that it doesn't charge very quickly it started DC charging quite fast but to get from 20% to 80% full which is a typical amount on a road trip well now it's been charging for 1 hour and 10 minutes and it's just got to 81% so something's not right there it's not charging very quickly on DC rapid charging I spoke to byd about this but they weren't too worried because as this was the first time this car had ever been rapid charged in its life they reckoned the cells weren't balanced properly so it won't likely be a problem in the future oh and some other positive news about charging those hyper rapid stalls at Bombay are going to double in capacity in the next few days but right now what I'm going to do is get this thing home it's been a long week I'm going to charge it up and then in the morning I'm going to find out how this thing handles these beautiful country Corners it's another day and I'm going to do a 0 to 100 test now there's no launch control but the car is in sport mode and the road is completely empty all right let's just mash the accelerator in 3 2 1 oh Cy far out oh it ramps up good Lord that would that's like a squirrel on espresso it just goes by the time you've got used to the idea that you're accelerating you're already at 100 oh that's dangerous you're going to get some speeding tickets in this thing okay well now that we're here near my top secret driving Road let's see how this thing handles the corners and here are the corners first of all let's swing this into sport mode on the steering let's turn the braking mode into sport mode that should be all we need to do now let's throw this thing into some corners and I'm expecting it to do well but my Benchmark for this vehicle is the Tesla model 3 because in my mind that is really one of the ultimate sedans in terms of handling but this is also low slung this is also wide this has double Wishbone front suspension it has multi-link suspension on the back so I'm expecting it to do very well first Corner oh my good Lord that's good okay I apologize for that noise but okay this is very good uh but it is also much much more comfortable than the Tesla Model 3 so I'm wondering if it's going to suffer a little the combination of the torque on all four wheels and the 2.2 tons almost Mass it just sticks to the road it it won't let go it's like a stain on a white shirt it's insane I absolutely love it that being said because this car is a good blend of comfort and performance it does waft a little bit more than the Tesla Model 3 when you get this thing over a bump and that's the price you pay when you have a car that has comfort in mind the Tesla 9 out of 10 chiropractors recommend that one because your spine will need adjusting if you go over a bump this one is much more of a happy family car compromise but oh you throw it into a corner like that it's utterly effortless this thing is magnificent utterly magnificent oh oh I can't believe they pay me to do this oh I cannot believe how far China's manufacturing has come this is just so refined go around the corner slam the brakes on dip into the lift power out oh I love it this thing is wicked seal repairs huh I hope not this thing's running great oh that's the end of it far out you know the car is good when my top secret driving Road ends like that ah I love it I really do byd you've made a fine machine but it's not all puppies and rainbows we need to talk about things I hate first thing is the slow AC charging speed only 7 KW cars that cost a lot less some of them can charge at 11 KW I know that's not really a big problem for New Zealand households because you need three-phase power for 11 KW but you know some of the car makers offer 11 KW charging this one doesn't next thing on my list is the dark Andor not a fan of it come on BW I know you guys offer other color combos in different countries give us that in New Zealand too next complaint is that while the steering wheel is fully adjustable that's fantastic the driver's instrument cluster is affixed to the dashboard so it means that if you like to have your steering wheel sit down low like I do boom there goes half the top of the instrument cluster you now can't see the bits in the corner fortunately they've figured that out and they haven't actually put any useful information in the corner at least not on this display setup the next complaint is that there is no cover for this giant glass roof above us much like the Tesla Model 3 Model y however in the boot you will find included in the price of every car a sun shield which Springs into life and you can install it into the car the only problem is it's a little bit of a fa to get these things installed took me about 4 minutes or so to install them in which I fell into the footwell oh Jesus and then once I'd extricated myself from the footwell the sun shade decided to punch me in the face but once I'd got the sun shade installed it actually looks okay in there blocks out a lot of light as well gives you some privacy that's the list of things I don't like admittedly that was a pretty pathetic list the things I like however well that is long it's easy it's easier than well me starting with the towing rating this thing can handle 1 and 1/2 tons of Brak towed load and if you're watching this byd can you Lear me one so I can do a towing comparison because recently I towed my project car which is an old Austin that I'm slowly converting to battery power and I used a Tesla Model 3 and it did a great job but I'd like to do a similar test using this to see how that toes the same load to see do I need to stop and charge as much let's find out byd loan me one of these things with a toe bar will make it happen next thing I love is the sound system the D audio sound system 12 speaker system throughout the car it is clearer than a glass slipper at a Cinderella convention it is brilliantly breathtakingly lovely the only complaint I would have about it is that I think possibly in order to limit the Distortion it caps out the maximum volume not as high as I'd like it to be and that's because imagine you got your windows down and it's a sunny day you're going through the countryside you want that music up loud well it'll only go so loud next thing I love is the central display here which as you know can spin it's also loaded with apps and functionality and because it runs on its own version of Android automotive you can also load your own Android apps into it recently I test drove the byd dolphin and it had Tinder installed on it which was interesting but it also means that you can install karaoke there's an option there that you can download and install on your car and each car comes with a data package as well so you don't have to worry about connecting it to your phone another thing I really like about this setup and I've not seen this in any other car before is that you can split the screen so just by pressing that button there there we go now on the left I've got my maps and on the right hand side I've got whatever other apps I want to install here it's absolutely brilliant the functionality the customizability is brilliant continuing on my list of weird stuff I've not seen this in a car before either you can have adjustable sized cup holders by pushing the button here the cup holder comes up so you can have a smaller Cup in there this is like simple stuff that I've never thought of another cool thing this has is overthe software updates so the car will improve over time and one great example of that is that already an overthe a software update has been made available for all byd cars to turn off the noise generator yes apparently my complaints about how awful the noise generators were according to the byd dude my complaints have caused byd to offer it without the noise generator as an option so uh you're welcome that being said if you do leave the noise generator on standard mode which kind of sounds like an ice cream truck from hell then it means that when you select between reverse and drive Commodore Vic 20 owners you'll know what this sounds like remember those old computers you have to load a game by putting an audio cassette in it yeah we had to do that kids then you'll remember the game pong well listen to that does that not sound similar does that not remind you of the game pong but lastly the thing I love the most about this car is that it's a sedan it's coming into 2024 and byd have released a good-looking sedan in a world of Crossovers and minivans byd have given me what I want a sedan because when you're a kid at school you didn't draw min Vans and crossovers no you drew sedans the Bonnet the cockpit the boot it's a classic shape what kind of weird kid draws a minivan okay okay there was always that one weird kid overall though you get the idea I love this car it goes like a rocket it handles great it's sublimely comfortable it's wide it's low it's fast it's everything I want in a car but will the Spud score like it as much as I do well let's find out starting with performance and I'm awarding it 9 out of 10 spuds for obvious reasons it goes like a rocket and it stops like me when it's time to buy the next round next is handling and it gets 8 out of 10 again you know why what about Comfort though well again 8 out of 10 it's got no body roll no jiggling no vibration it's quiet it's excellent as for efficiency 6 out of 10 spuds it might weigh almost 2.2 tons but it's Sleek shape meant that I averaged around 18 KW hours per 100K not bad for a super car gadgetry is next and 9 out of 10 it's got everything value is next and this performance model gets 6 out of 10 10 because while it's one of the cheapest supercars you can buy it's still a bit more than a Nissan Leaf as for charging 5 out of 10 which is an average score for both AC and DC charging I'll try rapid charging again in the upcoming Towing video so let's see if we can't raise that score style is next and it gets a very rare 10 out of 10 no explanation necessary just look at it but as it fit for purpose well the performance version is a bit overkill for the school run but I'm giving it 8 out of 10 because if you look at it as a modern version of the typical family Sedan like a Camry falcon or Commodore replacement then it's got just as much room much more grunt more gadgets a great tow rating this car could be part of any kiwi family and do everything and lastly PSC and I'm giving it 8 out of 10 because with a PSC of 74 it beats the Tesla Model y by a handful of tubers which gives a total Spud score of 77 an excellent score but if I was given the choice between the Tesla Model 3 Performance and the byd seal performance at this moment right now sitting behind the wheel of the seal I'd probably give this one my seal of approval

Channel: Ecotricity NZ

Views: 130,794

Keywords: BYD, NZ car review, Seal Performance, EV review, Gavin Shoebridge, Ecotricity

Id: Tj_g7n_bqjU

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023