In December of 2023, the largest NEV (New Energy Vehicle) manufacturer in the world – BYD – launched its challenger into the four-door premium/supercar sedan (say what?) category, the Seal.
The category is not one of BYD’s making – it’s ours – but it certainly does seem to fit and if it sounds contrived, well, that’s our way of saying the BYD Seal is quite unlike any other car we’ve ever driven.
We’ll be back to this. For now, it’s relevant to look at what BYD has been up to recently, and 13 years is still considered ‘recent.’
It took BYD 13 years to produce one million cars – remembering that this is a battery maker, as opposed to an automaker – and in the 18 months following, BYD expanded its vehicle total to three million. Nine months after this, BYD reached its five million car milestone. This is most definitely, a carmaker on the grow.
And it’s a carmaker doing its bit as far as the environment is concerned. BYD’s stated ambition is to cool the earth by one degree; it is well on the way to doing that.
On the 11th of November 2023, BYD had saved 44.5 billion kilograms of carbon – the amount of CO2 saved by a forest the size of Denver.
And thus, we come back to the December launch of the Seal. Some commentators have suggested the Seal is a direct competitor for Tesla’s Model 3, although this is not how we see it.
In our opinion, both cars should be assessed on individual merits, though we accept this is not likely to happen.
Seal will be compared to others on paper, but from the information given at the December launch, it’s the drive experience which will settle all discussions around Seal’s competitors.
BYD has already introduced new technology on pre-Seal vehicles, with the proprietary Blade battery putting the brand on the map; then licensing that technology to other ‘rival’ NEV manufacturers, including Tesla and Toyota.
With the Seal, BYD introduces further new tech, with cell-to-body frame construction and iTAC – Intelligent Torque Adaption Control – technology.
Cell-to-body integrates the battery into the frame of the car. This results in a strengthened car frame, protection for the battery, and improvement in the already good battery’s performance with increased energy density levels.
Demonstrating CTB tech is seriously cool: a Seal was pushed sideways into a barrier at 70km/h. The same car was turned around and pushed into the barrier again on the other side at 70km/h.
The battery was then extracted from the test bed car and reinstalled into a new car, which was then driven away, having suffered no ill effects from a serious pair of sideways slams.
The test was kind of expected since BYD takes pride in putting its technology advances through extreme torture testing and using this as marketing collateral – putting your money where your mouth is, taken to the next level!
The iTAC system was something we couldn’t test, but it is basically, an electronic system for the redistribution of torque, which we have seen on other cars.
So, what’s cool? BYD’s system operates 300 times faster than the competition, apparently. A racetrack test may demonstrate this, which lends credence to our call that the Seal competes as a premium supercar.
Seal deliveries commenced in January for the rear-wheel-drive, single-motor Dynamic model at $62,990, the rear-wheel-drive, single-motor Premium model at $72,990 and the all-wheel-drive, dual-motor Performance model at $83,990.
