BYD Dolphin review

First task for anyone driving one of these for the first time is finding the start/stop button, which is completely hidden behind the steering wheel and sits in a cubby in an almost horizontal position. Eh?

Anyway, on first impression the Dolphin does little to get in your way. The steering is accurate and nicely weighted, though it offers little to no feedback as to what the front wheels are doing. But then, that’s not so much a problem as you dart around town. Where it feels most at home.

It helps the ride is on the softer side, which means it takes the worst our broken roads – and speed bumps – can throw at it in its stride.

And out of town?

Well, it accelerates smoothly, with the 0-62mph sprint taking seven seconds on to a top speed of 99mph. That’s adequate for whooshing up a slip road or attempting a quick overtake of the numpty hogging the middle lane. It gets modes, including Eco, Normal, and Sport, but honestly we couldn’t tell the difference between them.

On a British B-road the softness of the ride means it quickly becomes quite unsettled, with plenty of body roll. And it's prone to understeer. Worse than that though is on the motorway where it has a tendency to drift about its lane, requiring constant steering adjustment to correct. That’s a sure-fire way to upset the lane keep assist system, which along with the speed limit warning needs an adventure into the touchscreen to turn off. No shortcut button here.

Still, the brakes are consistent, with friction and regen nicely balanced. There are two levels of regen, standard or high, which you use a button on the centre console to switch between. But even its maximum setting is still far milder than you might be used to. This is not one of those EVs you can drive on one pedal. 

What’s the efficiency like?

We averaged 3.5 mi/kWh over a couple of journeys taking in both inner city traffic and faster motorway running, equating to just over 210 miles total range. That’s versus BYD’s claim of 262 miles, and in pretty warm temperatures too. So not bad, but not brilliant either.

Handily, a heat pump is standard, while BYD reckons that its advanced battery conditioning increases thermal efficiency by up to 15 per cent in winter. Music to the ears of any current electric car owners who are used to seeing their range plummet when the temperate drops. 

Quick reminder on those charge times: you’re looking at 40 minutes from 10-80 per cent on a 88kW fast charger. That’s slower than many rivals these days, with support for up to 150kW charging quite common. Still, if you’ve any sense you’ll mostly charge at home: here a flat to full charge takes six hours.