REVIEW: BYD Dolphin

“The biggest car brand you have never heard of.” That’s how Ciaran Allen, Sales Manager at Motor Distributors Ireland signed off his presentation last June at the launch of Chinese company BYD’s first electric car to be sold in Ireland.

Mr Allen was probably too modest to add that BYD is also the most affordable electric car brand in this part of the world.

The first model we got to see last year was the Atto 3; last week I drove the Dolphin version and in the coming weeks we will have the Seal, which is a saloon. BYD stands for ‘Build Your Dreams’ and their cars are being imported and distributed in Ireland by MDL, who are also the Irish agents for Mercedes.

Basically, BYD is a battery company that is now building cars, taking on their rivals that frequently buy in batteries modules. In 2022 BYD overtook Tesla to become the largest manufacturer in the world of electric cars. Now it has the European market firmly in its sights.

The Atto 3 had the words ‘build your dreams’ written on the door of the boot, just under the rear window, but those three words were more discreetly used in the Dolphin. The words are still there, but included in the lighting strip under the rear window.

The car came in a very attractive shade of blue and during a week of very heavy frost I thought that the Dolphin had a white roof. But by the end of the week, when the weather changed I found that it was really a sun-roof!

Yes, a cold week for an electric car and normally when you turn on the air con to heat the car or clear the windscreen you will see the estimated range drop rapidly, but as BYD are also a battery company thankfully I didn’t see any drop in the range, which was around 420km when fully charged.

Inside, that blue colour is replicated on the dash and doors, complimented with a neat touch of red stitching. The dash is dominated by a huge infotainment screen which rotates from horizontal to vertical with the touch of a button. There is plenty of room in the back seat for two adults, maybe three at a squeeze. And you also get a decent-sized boot with two levels, but as usual with EV’s no spare wheel.

The only problem I had was with the radio and I have to admit that I had to get help from my tech-savvy son-in-law Anthony to help me find Marty on Lyric and Ryan Tubridy on Q102.

Up to now, the price of electric cars, even with government grants, has been seen as too expensive for many car owners to make the switch from a petrol or diesel. But now it looks like the Chinese manufacturers are going to force the prices down. Of course there are also problems for EVs with the haphazard charging network, but that’s a story for another day.

The basic Active version of the Dolphin starts at €25,570, while my Comfort model with a 60.4kWh battery will cost you €29,318. The Seal is expected to cost around €40k.

It was easy to charge, but occasionally the system needed a bit of coaxing. If you get a message saying ‘charge ended by vehicle’ you need to drive very close to the charge station and hold up the ESB charge cable for a few seconds, to take the strain off the cable. I had a similar problem with the Subaru Solterra a few months back.

Make no mistake, the affordable Chinese brand is here to stay. The MDL building at the corner of the Naas Road and Walkinstsown Avenue, which is famous for its Mercedes logo and a clock that always works, now carries the BYD logo also. With MDL’s support and expertise, I expect that the BYD brand will become one of the top electric car companies in the Irish car market.

I loved it and it has a brilliant turning circle, you could turn on the proverbial sixpence. The use of that lovely shade of blue in the cabin would lift your spirits in the morning, even on a frosty one.