After reserving a Nissan Qashqai from Hertz at the Edinburgh, Scotland, airport, I was surprised and somewhat delighted to be offered a BYD Seal U DM-i Plug-in Hybrid CUV, which is available in the U.K. with Boost, Comfort and Design trim levels.
Having only driven BYD vehicles on closed tracks for limited periods, I jumped at the chance to have one for a week to drive around lower Scotland and then into the Highlands and back.
The Seal U DM-i Plug-in Hybrid, the competitors of which include Ford Kuga/Escape (and maybe up to Edge CUV) and Kia Sportage, based on size and utility, is a 5-seater, powered by a 1.5L naturally aspirated gas-powered engine with a front-mounted synchronous electric motor paired with an e-CVT. It produces 163 hp and 155 lb.-ft. (210 Nm) of torque. A version with a larger battery, which we did not drive, offers 197 hp and 240 lb.-ft. (325 Nm) of torque.
The battery in our vehicle, the Seal Design, has a 7.7-kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, while the larger option is 17.6 kWh. The electric range of our vehicle is 34 miles (55 km). The electric-only range of the larger optional battery, called the Excellence trim, is 75 miles (121 km) on the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Our vehicle using the smaller battery is 80 mpg NEDC.
These numbers put the Seal PHEV in the upper tier of PHEVs in terms of electric-only distance and combined efficiency.
The Seal Design PHEV is no burner. The 0-100 km/h (0-62 mpg) is rated between 7.2-7.6 seconds, according to the company. We did not have conditions to make our own test. But in general driving, when we could bust out of the streets of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, we found the acceleration and performance perfectly acceptable when we needed it. Even with a CVT we found no noticeable lag, and we never felt like it was dragging. In short, the performance in our test was fine.
Scotland has no shortage of curvy roads, and because the roads were laid out for carriages long before the motor car showed up, there is no shortage of “Slow” signs as we navigated an endless series of blind curves, like one heart fluttering stretch along Loch Lomond where we faced down lorry after lorry bearing down us as we journeyed on the left side (“wrong” side in the U.S.) of the road.
Side-to-side stability was adequate, but we would not call it a stiff ride. In truth, there is no excitement at all in driving the Seal, but it’s not billed to be exciting. It’s built to be comfortable and efficient, and a value for families.
The fact is, there don’t seem to be many places to really open the throttle in Scotland, so horsepower is not a No.1 priority in the land of Robbie Burns and single-malt Scotch. With petrol priced where it is, efficiency is key. Indeed, at our only gas-up, I heard two petrol pumpers discussing where there was a station nearby with gas 10 pence per liter cheaper.
The frugal operation of the Seal PHEV starts with the 55-km electric-only operation. The ICE engine is then used to charge the battery and only occasionally kicks in to power the front wheels. We got 550 miles (886 km) before gassing up when we were down to 50 miles (80 km) of range, meaning we got 600 miles (966 km) on a full tank of gas.
To appreciate the value here, consider that £33,205 ($45,679) price tag for a 5-seater CUV when a Volkswagen Golf PHEV costs £36,000 ($49,525) in the same market.
As a trip car, the Seal is as good as a Ford Escape/Kuga Hybrid, Kia Sportage PHEV, Peugeot 3008 Hybrid, Hyundai Tucson PHEV or BMW X3 xDrive30e. We easily carried two decent-sized roller bags, along with a carry-on roller in the rear storage area behind the back seats, plus bags of goodies acquired along the way. The cargo space is 15 cu.-ft.(425 L) with rear seats upright and 51 cu.-ft. (1,440L) with seats down in a 60/40 split. Unbraked towing capacity for the AWD trim is 1,650 lbs. (750 kg) and 2,866 lbs. (1,300 kg) braked. The tow rating for the FWD was unavailable. Towing is definitely a thing for the Scots as they are camping-daft in the summer months as they head for the Highlands.
The infotainment and telematics setup in the Seal PHEV is visually premium and feature-rich. There is a rotating 15.6-in. (39.6-cm) center screen that physically turns from landscape to portrait on demand. The display is large and bright. But it has some real, annoying weaknesses. For one, there was an irritating lag between the 360-degree view that comes on the screen and the resumption of the navigation screen; waiting for the transition while a car is behind you is a drag. The native nav system worked well about 85% of the time but had lags and misfires that had us going the wrong way a handful of times. Roundabouts everywhere made corrective action pretty easy but still a nuisance. The instrument cluster is on a 12.3-in. (31.2-cm) screen in front of the driver.
The home-screen button on the center screen gives you a choice to access many apps. We had to reset the navigation if we stopped on the way to our programmed destination, and the button to engage Apple CarPlay was found by wandering the menu a few times. Just about everything, including the HVAC, is controlled on the screen with no knobs. Volume for the audio system is best accessed on the steering wheel controls.
An owner of this car would surely develop cognitive muscle memory to find all the frequently used apps and controls in the system, but for a renter there was considerable hunting for various functions.
Some value features include a pano roof on the lower Design trim we tested.
BYD is not selling vehicles in the U.S., and its management says it has no plans to do so. Political hostility toward China started in Donald Trump’s first term, continued in Joe Biden’s presidency and has accelerated and intensified in Trump 2.0. Not only do tariffs make it hard for Chinese carmakers to enter the U.S., but pending regulations are also hostile to having Chinese-made and -developed software operating systems in the U.S. for fear of spyware.
But European and Central American consumers can compare BYDs to rivals just as Chinese consumers can. It seems inevitable that the company eventually will compete in the U.S. And that gives BYD several years to figure out how it wants to lure U.S. car buyers away from Detroit, Japan, South Korea and European carmakers.
