BYD Seal 6 review

Picture the scene. You’re merrily driving along, minding your own business, and happen to glance down to check your speed. Out of nowhere an alarm begins to bong a voice orders you to ‘Keep your eyes on the road’. Checking your mirrors? Same story. Changing the temperature? Same story. Scratching your nose? You get the picture. It’s that bad.

The driver assist systems, from the traffic sign recognition to the lane keep assist, aren’t much better either, and will drive you insane with their bonging. These can at least be turned off through the touchscreen, but only by wading through a dozen menu options... every single time you get into the car.

Curiously, the steering wheel does offer two custom buttons, but they only allow you to turn on/off the wifi, play/pause the media, or switch audio source. ARGH!

Yikes. We’re not off to a good start…

Nope. Look, we know it’s now law to have these things, but these are as bad as we’ve tried. BYD could learn a thing or two from its rivals, pretty much all of whom make it significantly easier to tailor their behaviour or switch them off entirely. We beg you.

Unfortunately, the driving experience isn’t much better either. Immediately you find yourself recoiling at the vague steering. And while not quite as heavy as the Seal – this tips the scales at 1,665kg as a saloon or 1,710kg as an estate (the bigger battery adds another 100kg) – the damping, while presumably fine on smooth Chinese highways, struggles to cope with our pockmarked UK roads.

As a result any bumps or ruts are quite jarring in the cabin, and the ride, unless you’re coasting up and down the motorway all day, is unsettled. On the plus side, body control is decent and wind and road roar are kept shtum.

At last, something positive!

Ha. BYD’s plug-in hybrid system is worth a nod here too. As a reminder, the entry version gets a combined 181bhp, 34 miles saloon/31 miles estate e-range from a 10.1kWh battery, while the upper version gets a combined 209bhp, 64 miles saloon/62 miles estate e-range, and 19kWh battery. We’ve tried both.

When you first pull away you could be forgiven for thinking it's a full EV, and that’s because the 1.5-litre four cylinder powertrain is mostly there to keep the battery topped up, with the electric motor powering the wheels. As such progress is pleasantly smooth, with 0-to 62mph taking 8.9s in the lesser powered model, 8.5s in the upper powered model. In the real world it’s impossible to tell the difference.

Floor it and the engine can also drive the wheels, but at motorway speeds it’s quiet enough that you don't really notice. Shame that the driver assist systems disturb the peace.

BYD claims a whopping up to 935 miles WLTP range combined, with the trip computer showing over 750 miles fully brimmed (plus the e-range). We averaged around 60mpg with minimal difference between the two versions. In your face, range anxiety.

Anything else to note?

Like the Seal-with-no-number, you don’t get any steering wheel paddles here either – you’ve only two brake regen choices (standard or high, but even when you've selected the latter it's far from strong), and you’ll find them tucked away in the touchscreen. Shock, horror, etc.

You do get a couple of driving modes – Eco, Normal, Sport, Snow – that you select with a scroller on the centre console. But they don’t make a huge amount of difference to the way it goes down a road.