[sarathlal]

Few months back, Seal was a strong contender for the electric purchase, without much of a competition. But had to rule it out due to poor ground clearance.

All of a sudden, there are three vehicles that look capable of filling in, although they aren't an apples to apples comparison.

Would love to hear from TBHP on whats the take amongst;
1. BYD Sealion
2. BMW iX1 LWB
3. Mahindra XEV 9E

According to you, whats the major positive one gets as an owner, and what would be the compromise made.

Priorities would be Driving dynamics followed by Comfort and Family oriented daily driver car with weekend long drives

[sanchit223]

Really look forward to responses from folks who have understanding of these 3 vehicles. A few months back, who would have imagined a comparison between BMW, BYD and Mahindra is even possible !

[mgoel]

I did test drive for both BYD Sealion and Mahindra XEV 9E
BYD Sealion - Very luxurious, feel premium and well engineered car. Drives well but more linear acceleration. Some tyre noise do creep in the cabin. Fit, finish overall capability makes it feel like car that can cost > 1 cr !!
XEV 9E - drives better, very silent and acceleration is superb, well build but does not feel luxurious. It just feel another mid segment car

[krishnakarthik1]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

But had to rule it out due to poor ground clearance.

I wish BYD put in some effort to increase the GC like VW did with the Virtus- Slavia twins. Seal is such a perfect car for me and a lot of folks I know because we go to Tirumala many of times a year and we want to go there with just one small charging pit stop. We are evaluating EV's based on that requirement and Seal is the only one that does that.

Had the ground clearance not been so low, we would have bought at least 10 odd vehicles in our circle because there is no road tax in Telangana.

That said I don't see a point in buying these now unless you get crazy discounts. Seal is 10 lakhs odd expensive than the top end BE and Sealion will be even more expensive. And these are not cars but gadgets which depreciate like crazy. My tiago EV bought 6 months back for 10 lakhs is hardly worth 5 lakhs now.

[vattyboy]

I have checked out both the Sealion and XEV 9e in person last week and absolutely there is no competition between the two.

The interior and exterior quality of BYD is light years ahead of XEV 9e. XEV interior quality is pathetic for a 38 lakh rupees car ( soft touch leather used is very bad, interiors had uneven panel gaps) I mean after sitting in XEV when I came back to my 23-24 lakh rupees Creta, the cabin of creta felt more premium ( steering leather, leather seats and all other plastic interior etc.)

In BYD or BMW you will not get any niggles which XEV initiate batches "can" give.

Now regarding BMW vs BYD, BMW will give you better handling + Badge value while BYD will give you 600 BHP + X3 size car + More complete born EV car.

And what more I should say about 600 bhp under your foot. While on test drive of Seal the moment I pressed the throttle upto 70% the WHOLE world stopped.. it was only me , the car and high g-force .. it's freaking fast. The moment I pressed the accelerator, the car which were near me were left behind in dust in just 2 second.

After considering all points above, my choice would be BYD Sealion 7

[sarathlal]

Though test drives are not yet possible here, got a detailed walkthrough today. From the looks of it, ground clearance does not appear to be a problem with the Sealion.

Here's a shot that clearly shows the difference between the two. The entry/exit angles, as well as the wheel well appear to be significantly spaced better in the Sealion

[AMG Power]

The main downside with the Sealion is that it does not have the suspension to handle the 530 bhp on tap. The suspension has been set up on the soft side for comfort and not high speed handling.

Soft suspensions are not good for cars that do 0-100 in 4.5 seconds. The single motor variant may be a better bet in that area.

A similar case in point is the Volvo dual motor that also has a 0-100 timing of 4.5 seconds. This car is also slightly disconcerting at high speeds. The EV tyres don’t seem to be able to handle the speed well and the brakes are not upto stopping the car well at high speed either. The Volvo has a stiff suspension though but still isn’t very good at speed.

Haven't driven the Mahindras but they appear to have got the high speed handling right.

The BMW is an also ran here. No point, comparing a 200 bhp car with a 530 bhp one.

[Sensible_Speed]

They are three completely different vehicles. Sealion is a tech demonstrator as is the Mahindra. They're both screen heavy and irritating to use in the long run. iX1 LWB seems to be the best if you want a no frills daily that does literally that and nothing else at all. If you're in it for the geek factor, Sealion is the way to go. If you want to stand out on the road, Mahindra turns the most heads.

[jetpack470]

I am also in the market for an electric car and considered the Mahindra twins briefly, but I just do not trust Mahindra to be honest. I can not have critical components like suspensions, airbags, wheel hubs, brakes, among others fail on me. I am a slow driver but I do go on the occasional 150 kmph short sprint on empty and known (to me) highways like the new mumbai expressway and I simply would not feel comfortable driving above 100 in Mahindras (or tatas tbh).

There have been 2 instances (that I know of) where an XEV 9e was involved in a serious crash where the airbags did not deploy. Many in other Mahindra cars have also reported the same. There was another post on this forum where a man lost his leg because his Scorpio-Ns suspension apparently broke at 110kmph. Maybe the car wasn't at fault, but Mahindra's response to this incident, and the fact that the car magically combusted 6 hours afterwards, lets just say I don't really want to put my life in a company such as this' hands.

Apart from this, the paint quality of Mahindra's, the misaligned panels and resulting gaps. Even on my test drive, both the electric twins had issues. In the 9e, the menu button on the steering wheel refused to work (kind of important when they've shoved every single AC and music control into the screens). In the 6e, more alarmingly, the park button broke. It literally said on the screen (park button broken, service required or something). The salesman told me to leave the car on neutral to get out. It was btw not possible to turn the car off on neutral. Somehow they managed to shut off the car after the next test drive as I saw it parked but still. The 6e had arrived at the showroom that very day. Unless some customer took a hammer to the lever, I don't see how the button could fail the same day.

I can not speak for BYD, like Mahindra, their cars appear perfect on paper but I simply do not know enough about the quality of components they use in their cars. The interior at least feels of relatively very high quality. BMW, despite being worse in almost every regard on paper and more expensive, I feel at least will use higher quality components.

Personally, the electric car I will buy will be my daily, so the creta electric is making sense to me. It doesn't draw attention, it is cheap, and I've had a great experience owning a Hyundai Elantra. But the creta doesn't tick all of my boxes, mainly that I felt it had NVH a little too high. I won't be looking at the BMW because it draws too much attention for a daily use car. BYD Atto 3 and the sea lion are also attractive to me and with the Atto I haven't heard or read of any critical component failures in India so far. The fact that they sell the same CBUs to other advanced countries with real consumer protection laws and high safety standards makes me feel better.

Sorry for the long post.

[sunikkat]

I haven’t driven any of these 3, but have checked out the exterior and interiors of iX1 and Mahindra.

If you want badge value it is BMW. It’s a good entry point to luxury badge and I feel for the brand, pricing is very competitive.

If performance is priority, then BYD. But still I feel BMW will find more sales at that price point due to badge value.

I wouldnt really compare Mahindra twins at this price point. I havent found the interior quality of them to be great. Though personal opinion, the styling is on your face. This is a good buy at 30 lakhs but not above that. And there is always that worry about niggles in a tech laden Mahindra.

Though I am not yet ready to buy an EV, if I have to, would have gone with iX1 for the badge value alone.

[anshul70701]

I have not driven or seen ix1 in person but i have experienced the other 2

In my opinion both vehicles solve the same purpose and if you are in the market for luxury EV SUV you can choose any of the two. Both cars have same almost amount of power and torque with similar soft suspension setup in terms of feel only. Very Good music system. Spacious. Big boot. Tech loaded in terms of screen & gimmick.

I have booked both cars, but will go forward Sealion 7(Premium variant). It will be almost 15-20lacs expensive. Then why??

If you don't have a budget issue this is what another 15-20 lacs will get you

1. Better finish (leaps ahead of 9e and almost 2 segments above ix1)
2. Better tuned and tighter feeling music system
3. Much more comfortable seats
4. Better ride and handling.
5. Better choice of gimmicks
(Like if you select an option of lowering the ac fan speed automatically if you pickup a call. That to me is a usable gimmick. Not a dance show or lighting in sunroof) This is just one example
As i haven’t spend a lot of time.
6. Looks premium and have a pleasing design and headturner in a good way. Which 9E is clearly not.
7. No trust issues as they are fairly old in this and they have proved themselves all around the world
8. 6 years warranty. For mahindra it is 3 years.

And If you compare it with IX1,
Brand lovers will obviously buy BMW only but they will miss a lot of things as a package

1. Less powerful motor with extra added weight.
2. Smaller battery pack
3. Less space as it is only 4600mm and other two are close to 4800mm
4. Average music system compared to both 9E & Sealion 7
5. Stiffer suspension setup
6. Less tech

Well that just my observations. I may be wrong and would love to hear all your opinions and maybe change my mind based on it, before i put my hard earned almost 50lcs

[kit_dennis]

I am considering all 3 of these for my upgrade from the current ride, S-cross 1.6 in the near future. Visted all 3 showrooms today. iX1 demo car was not available at Kun Showroom, Hosur road, took a test drive of Sealion at Mahadevpura showroom and saw the Mahindras at their silkboard showroom.

We(including my Gen Alpha duaghter) didnt like the over done styling of the Be6 and Xev. The test drive of Sealion was impressive, but a bit bouncy on the uneven Bangalore flyovers. And for Bmw, its costing 57.3L on road in Bangalore.

Since we have few months time, will wait and watch. Waiting for the Volvo EX30 and its cross country version as well.

[TokyoDrifter]

Now that the Sealion7’s pricing is out (48.9 and 54.9 for the Premium and Performance variants respectively):

Is the extra 112 bhp + RWD of BYD Premium variant worth giving up on the BMW badge (FWD) and peace of mind — for the same price?

[W140SKlasse]

I'm sorry, but one just cannot compare the Mahindra EVs with the BYD or the BMW iX1. There's a 10 lakh INR price difference at the very least. Having experienced the XEV, I was really impressed with it. Sure, there were some fit and finish issues, but it definitely wasn't even close to terrible, and the performance and road holding felt really good.
Price-wise the BYD and BMW are comparable but are as different as chalk and cheese. I'd pick the BMW (I did experience it) if I had to buy an EV in that price segment because of better after-sales support. We've no idea about the long-term reliability of BYD cars yet. The huge amount of power on tap on the Sealion is great for the occasional joyride, but the car's overall dynamics don't support spirited driving.

[VSEV85]

I personally have booked the xev 9e after first booking the BYDemax7, then changed the booking to Sealion and finally requested a refund. The BMW priced below 50L still comes with only a 65kw battery which in real world scenario will do around 370kms - 390kms. The BYD Sealion with 82kw battery would do 470kms - 490kms. The XEV 9E with 79kw would do 450kms - 470kms. These are highway ranges at a speed of around 100kmph driven sedately. I current use a MG ZS EV which has clocked around 1.5lakh kms. The battery degradation is around 13 percent. A bigger battery makes better sense if you consider keeping the car longer. A 13 percent degradation of the battery will result in reduced range of 320kms in the BMW, 410kms in the BYD and 395 in the 9E.

Byd would win hands down when considering fit and finish. But when considering long term use, I chose the 9E over the BYD as it is made in India. I usually keep my cars for at least 8-10 years or 2 - 3 lakh kms. I'm assuming the wait time at the service center for the replacement parts during service in future would be less for the 9E as it is a mahindra, made in India, while the BYD is a CBU.

I'm not saying that the 9E is perfect. The price offered by Mahindra is just too irresistible considering the features the car comes loaded with. The price difference of 25L (on road ) in Chennai between the 9E and the Sealion is too big. You get 85 percent of what the BYD offers at at 25L less. The E9 battery comes with a lifetime warranty with unlimited kms up to a max of 15 Years for the first owner. So any questions of incurring huge costs on battery replacement is taken care off by the warranty.