How does a BYD Seal feel from behind the wheel?

The car feels very well insulated even at triple digit speeds with pretty much zero powertrain, road or wind noise.

BHPian Kevinrevvz recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

BYD Seal Performance AWD Driving Impressions

Pictured here is the beautiful Shark Grey shade which is unfortunately not available to order in India. It’s a paid option abroad. 

I recently got to drive the BYD Seal Performance AWD at PPS BYD, Bangalore and oh boy is it a completely different animal to the Premium RWD variant. 

Let’s address the elephant in the room, the Performance! In Sport mode with iTAC turned on, there’s none of that linear ramp up or delay from the RWD here. The throttle is extremely sharp and the moment you put your foot down, it brutally takes off. It keeps you strongly pinned to your seat till about 100Kmph after which the initial storm subsides. 

It feels very much like the 3.8S 0-100 car it’s supposed to be. It feels more brutal when accelerating from a standstill than a BMW M340i or an Audi RS5. 

The car feels very well insulated even at triple digit speeds with pretty much zero powertrain, road or wind noise. Put your foot down from triple digit speeds and you notice the numbers rapidly climb up in the speedo but you don’t experience that sudden jolt of G Force you feel from lower speeds. 

Dynamically, the car is very well sorted. It’s relatively stiffly sprung with frequency selective damping. It’s comfortable enough on bad roads for a sport sedan and the high speed stability is stellar. The steering is not too feedback rich but well weighted and very precise. It changes directions at high speeds with a lot of confidence and handles corners with no sweat like a true sport sedan that you forget the 2.2 ton kerb weight. 

The 145mm ground clearance may be a cause of concern for some but it didn’t scrape its belly on any of the large speed breakers en route. The front splitter however is quite low and scrapes on steep ramps if not dealt with sideways. Wherever you can take a 3/5 Series, you can take this. With mixed driving, I experienced a real world range figure of around 450Km as opposed to 500-520Km on the RWD variant. I would say that sacrifice in range is completely worth it in exchange for the missile-like performance on offer. 

I was initially quite underwhelmed with the Seal Premium but the Seal Performance has completely changed my mind about this car. It’s not only a great EV but also a fantastic driver’s car which can keep the most discerning of enthusiasts happy both in a straight line as well as in corners.

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