I first met the BYD Seagull (if you can truly say that you’ve “met” an inanimate object … ) on the stage at the Beijing Motor Show a year and a half ago.
Considering that this was a car that was then striking deep and abiding fear into the hearts of European car makers, it didn’t seem so threatening.
It wasn’t some slavering beast held beyond chomping distance on a strong chain. Nor was it a mountainous Cthulhu waiting to place madness in the minds of men.
No, it was just a small, cheap, perfectly cheerful electric hatchback. It was the cheapness that was triggering visions of HP Lovecraft in Euro car boardrooms, though. As the Seagull, the little EV hatch was being sold in China for a price equivalent to slightly less than €10,000. Nothing with a European badge or factory could possibly hope to keep pace with that kind of pricing.
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Fast forward 18 months, and the Seagull is now sitting in front of me again, only this time the keys are in my hand. However, it’s no longer a Seagull, as BYD has had to change it so much that it now deserves a new name – the Dolphin Surf. Also, seagulls, as anyone who grew up in a coastal village will know, are all a bunch of feathery, chip-stealing thieves, so naming a car after them would probably not be a good look. Certainly not in the west Cork of my youth.
The changes are profound. The Dolphins Surf is some 210mm longer than it was in China, and the structure has been significantly updated so that it can get through European crash test certification, not to mention that it’s now a sufficiently strong car that it scores a full five stars on the Euro NCAP independent crash test.
There is tuned and tweaked suspension too, theoretically more in line with European tastes, and the batteries are bigger, as Euro customers demand greater flexibility from their cars.
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All of which costs, so the Dolphin Surf lands here in Ireland with a price tag of just under €18,000 in its basic, small-battery form. That’s certainly very competitive, but a Dacia Spring is comfortably cheaper still, and the BYD has direct competition not only from China in the shape of the Leapmotor T03, but also Korea, in the shape of the really quite brilliant Hyundai Inster.
Like the Inster, the Dolphin Surf is long but narrow, so while there’s only enough width for two seats in the back, anyone sitting there gets generous legroom (not quite as roomy as an Inster with the seat all the way back, but still very good) and a useful 308 litre boot, which expands to 1,037 litres if you fold down those seats.
Under the floor, in our Comfort-spec test car, is a 43kWh battery, using BYD’s in-house lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery, which is cheaper to make than more sophisticated nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries, and which better withstands both fast-charging and physical damage. It’s enough for a claimed 310km range, but if you want to maximise your cheapness, rather than your mileage, there is a more basic Active version with a 30kWh battery and a 220km range.
How accurate that range claim is will depend entirely on how you drive the Dolphin Surf. Take it out on a long motorway run, and your energy use will spike to 21kWh/100km, which is far from impressive for such a small car. Keep to slower roads, or stay in town, and that consumption should fall to something like BYD’s claimed 15.6kWh/100km, which suggests that the full 310km is actually achievable, but based on our test, 250km seems like a safer limit.
Performance is fine, thanks to the 156hp electric motor driving the front wheels, which you get with this top Comfort spec. Active and Boost models have to make do with a mere 88hp. With the more powerful motor, the Dolphin Surf easily swims (sorry) with larger cars on motorways, and never feels anything less than brisk.
The suspension retune has clearly worked too, as the Dolphin Surf feels confident, if not exactly engaging, on Irish roads. The ride quality is firm, but pretty well controlled, and there’s a sense of ease to how the Dolphin Surf corners. It’s not any fun, though. Anyone hoping that this being a small and relatively light (by EV standards) car would ramp up the fun-factor will be left disappointed, once again, that the F-word doesn’t seem to appear in BYD’s engineering vocabulary. I suppose the eye-watering “Lime Green” paint almost counts as one big go-faster stripe?
Most likely, few customers will actually notice this. They’ll be too distracted by a cabin that looks and feels surprisingly plush for a car with a price tag this low. Sure, there are plenty of cheap plastics, but they don’t feel oppressive, and there are also plenty of very high-quality materials on show. The touchscreen remains occasionally frustrating (and the rotating thing is never any more than a gimmick), but there are at least some, neatly arranged, physical switches, although the driver’s display looks a bit over-loaded with data, and can be tricky to set up the way you want it.
Then, we must return to the price. Like the Hyundai Inster, the BYD Dolphin Surf’s headline-grabbing entry-level price doesn’t tell the full story, and while even basic models come with adaptive cruise control, “vegan” leather, climate control, and the 10.1-inch touchscreen, the fact is you do need to upgrade to the Comfort version if you want a decent range and decent performance – factors far more fundamental than some nice extras. As with the Inster, then, you’re looking at paying more like €23,000-24,000 to get the car you actually want.
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Which is perhaps a touch less terrifying for European car makers. After all, a basic Renault 5 – one of the best cars around, regardless of how it’s powered – is within touching distance of that price tag. Thusly, unlike Cthulhu, the Dolphin Surf is worthy of more respect than fear.
Lowdown: BYD Dolphin Surf Comfort
Power: 115kW e-motor developing 156hp and 220Nm of torque, powering the front wheels via a single-speed automatic transmission.
Electric consumption: 15.6 kWh/100km (WLTP).
Electric range: 310km (WLTP) 250km (on test).
0-100km/h: 9.1 sec.
Price: €24,113 as tested, Dolphin Surf starts from €17,985.
