By Brian Byrne
Parents, son, and daughter are sitting in their stalled car, munching on food they were taking to a party. Not particularly upset about those who are waiting for the goodies they’re chomping with gusto. ‘Yeah, genius here forgot to put petrol in the car’, wife says, on the phone to the disappointed people awaiting the grub. Son in the back, also devouring a big share of the Aldi deli, chortles, ‘Classic, Dad.’ And Dad, in the front passenger seat, grins between bites of fancy cheeses and says, ‘You’re welcome.’
Have to ask why Mum hadn’t noticed the low fuel before they ran out? After all, she was driving the car.
Anyhow, with the growing number of electric cars being bought in Ireland, (so far this year, 37 per cent up on the same period in 2024) that ad at some point in the near future will have to be about which ‘genius’ didn’t plug in the car overnight before their journey.
In particular, I’m losing track of the Chinese-made brands and models outside my house in recent months. Another one, Leapmotor, is just arriving on the Irish market as I write. They’re all consistently well-made, though I understand it’s a dog-eat-dog situation back home, where 129 EV brands are fighting for a viable market share where more than half of sales are electric or plug-in hybrid.
Only 15 of those will be financially viable in five years.
BYD is now the biggest electric car maker in the world, and the brand is in 14th place in the Irish market after just over two years here. That it is just one place behind Mercedes-Benz is telling. The Sealion 7 is the latest in Ireland of a five-model lineup, smooth and sleek, and in a size bracketed by the Tesla Y and Polestar 3.
Apart from a couple of pointy bits in the thin headlamps, this car is all curves. Bucking a style trend that’s been emerging, where cars are taking the square-look road by and large. That probably won’t affect the sales much, as it is still a handsome beast.
Inside, there’s the obligatory Chinese giant central screen, probably the size of a pair of iPad Pros. Thankfully, there’s also a driver’s screen directly in front so that at least the essential driving information is close to eye level. But the graphics within what’s a large area are oddly tiny, the biggest being a quite small digital speed readout. On the other hand, the steering wheel-mounted controls are nice and big, and the centre console transmission selector is nicely visible and straightforward. It’s a spacious car, though a shorter colleague thought the dashboard a bit high. The finish all-round is very good without being luxurious, probably quite practical. Good space in the back and a quite massive boot.
It’s a smooth drive, no surprise there.
It’s in the top of three available grades, with a dual motor all-wheel-drive and 530hp, offering a 4.5-second sprint to 100km/h. Not at all bad for a 2.5-tonne or so car. That’s been a massive shift in Irish motoring over the last decade, when 100hp was decent, 150hp was powerful, and 200hp was fast. We’re in a different place now, and I’m unsure if the insurance industry or the driving instruction has caught up.
Those motors in the review car were powered by a 91.3kWh battery of BYD’s own design, with a rated European range of 520 km. If you work on the displayed real-world efficiency, you’ll find that 420 km is probably more accurate. Which is enough.
Unless ‘genius’ has forgotten to plug it in. In which case, one would hope that the cache of Aldi goodies has again been collected before starting out to be ‘stuck in the middle of nowhere.’
