- BYD will officially unveil the Seal 06 GT at the end of the month.
- It is likely a model designed specifically to do well in Europe where it faces stiff competition.
- The dual-motor version will have over 400 horsepower, but not enough to outpace the MG4 Xpower.
BYD is on a roll in China right now, with 35% higher sales year-over-year and seven out of the ten most popular vehicles in China last month. It is constantly expanding its lineup, and the latest and most enticing addition is the BYD Seal 06 GT, a hatchback that not only looks sporty but also promises to deliver a driving experience to match.
It is the production version of the BYD Ocean-M concept, and it’s built on a new platform called e-Platform 3.0 Evo (an evolution of e-Platform 3.0), whose big innovation is that it features a structural battery pack. The Seal 06 GT is about the same size as a Kia EV6, but it sits lower to the ground, and there’s no hint of crossover in its design.
Sales of the model will commence in China in the third quarter of the year, but Chinese media says this is a model mostly aimed at the European market where it won’t have a direct hatchback rival its size that isn’t a crossover. Its closest competitors in Europe will be the smaller Volkswagen ID.3 and MG4, which have seen some sales success, and BYD is clearly trying to tap into a segment that seems popular but offers a larger and more posh vehicle.
It will be interesting to see if the new European import duties imposed on cars manufactured in China will impact BYD’s plan to bring the new hatchback to the continent.
The base single-motor rear-wheel-drive Seal 06 GT has a peak power output of 214 horsepower. The dual-motor all-wheel-drive version adds a 147-hp front drive unit for a combined output of 415 horsepower. That’s an impressive figure for the segment, but it’s slightly less than what the MG4 Xpower offers.
BYD hasn’t released performance data, but the dual-motor version should be able to hit 62 mph (100 km/h) in a little over 4 seconds.
Base models will receive a 59.52 kilowatt-hour pack, while higher-spec versions will get a 72.96 kWh pack. These are good for 313 and 375 miles of claimed range on the optimistic Chinese test cycle, the CLTC. The more realistic WLTP test cycle used in Europe will bring down these range estimates by at least 10%.
When BYD unveiled the Ocean-M concept, it announced that for the production model, it was targeting a price range of 150,000 to 200,000 yuan, roughly between $21,000 and $28,000. More details are expected to be shared with the BYD Seal 06 GT as it makes its official debut at the Chengdu Auto Show, which starts on August 30.
