Is this the best value Electric car? BYD dolphin Review UK
Yesterday at the byd event that I attended the team used a phrase which I really quite liked it was byd they’re the biggest brand you’ve never heard of but what does that mean well you see despite the fact that byd only arrived at the start of last year in the UK it’s
Actually been trading for nearly 30 years they’ve sold 3 million vehicles and by the end of last year they actually outsold Tesla for electric vehicle sales so they’re not a small company they’re absolutely huge although of course most of their trading is in China but over the last couple of years
They’ve started to move into Europe and we’re starting to see a few models this is one of the first of the three that have come to the UK with three more expected by the end of next year this is the byd dolphin it’s their small City
Car and it’s the car that we’re going to be talking about in today’s video hi guys I’m Tish and welcome back to my channel Auto social UK in today’s video I’ll tell you everything you need to know about the byd dolphin if that sounds good then please keep watching
And if you like new car reviews and car content then go ahead and hit the Subscribe button so let’s start by talking about design because this is quite a cutesy looking car right right it definitely has a place in the market I think it looks to be replacing the Renault Zoe it
Has similar themes about it it’s not quite as dynamic as the mg4 but I don’t think it needs to be this looks to me like a vehicle which will be your first electric car or perhaps even your first car as people start to learn to drive and start going into electric vehicles
But it’s a great first car offering it’s super safe and it does up to 26 60 mil but let’s talk a bit more about Design This is the top spec model so you’ve got a two-tone design with the black bonnet black roof and you also have those gloss
Black elements around the front you also have this lovely blue paintwork on the outside and you’ve got Tri colored Wheels now I personally actually prefer the lower specification model to this one this is the top of the range but I quite like the singular color with some
Slightly more simple Wheels I think it SU the vehicle all versions do get this textured Grill around the front but it’s inside which I think is really cool inside of the dolphin you will find a lot of interesting things to look at there’s quite a lot going on in here
Although it’s not initially apparent in this slightly more palatable black model this is probably as safe as it gets when it comes to be yd styling believe me you get some really funky Interiors but this one here is quite simple and I know that’s going to appeal to quite a few
People now I got loads of messages when I put up the dolphin on my story on Instagram which if you’re not following the links to my Instagram are in the description box and a lot of people asked about quality because unfortunately that is one of the first
Things that people think of when they think of Chinese cars that the quality is not always as good as some Rivals well I’m really pleased to say the quality is actually quite impressive it’s far better than I was expecting and let me explain sure you have got some
Things which I expected which includes the vegan leather so you’ve got a vegan leather armrest and you’ve got vegan leather seats these seats are lovely by the way they’re Sports seats you’ve got some contrasting gray piping and they’re also kind of in this ventilated material as well they feel quite fancy they don’t
Even feel like cheap seats they really do feel like high quality seats and then you’ve got this kind of textured almost suede effect which is once again imitation suede across the dashboard and this is so squishy it’s really really squishy actually as you press it your
Fingers kind of sink into it you do have a slightly harsher plastic dashboard at the top and you have got some gloss black which I know is Blasphemous in the car world but not much of it you’ve got this black across the dashboard and you’ve got a little bit on the steering
Wheel but that’s the only kind of gloss that you’ll find and I think it’s small enough in the cabin that it’s not going to get too many sticky fingerprints on it there’s none in this center console you’ve got a little bit of kind of brushed plastic down the center but
Again it’s quite high quality and then where you usually find your real cheap Plastics which is down low they’re actually textured so they’ve got this kind of texture over them and it means that it’s not scratchy nasty it kind of has a soft feel about it which really
Surprised me and it’s not just this Top speec Model either they have it in the mid-spec model as well you’ve also got a Lea wrapped steering wheel like I said if I was going to get a quirky car like this I’d be getting a slightly more interesting interior something a bit
Different a different color or something slightly brighter but if you want something which isn’t quite so divisive then this would be it right now let’s talk about a real highlight of the byd which is the technology and this is an area where the brand really does pride themselves they’re
Working hard to constantly improve all of the technology in their vehicles as I mentioned they’re ahead of the game because they help build half of the world’s iPads but also technology paints are constantly coming through that factory they’re working on it every single day in fact Us in Europe are
Probably already behind on the massive technology they have over there one of the functions that it does have is of course the rotating screen I’m sure you’ve seen this many times on a byd review and it never gets old does it it is a very cool thing to have does it
Really have any practicality well I’ve had this car for three days now and I haven’t worked well out yet but it is cool and it’s a bit of a party trick and it impresses your friends the functions on this system can all be found clearly laid out let’s turn
It because I actually prefer it in the landscape orientation and as you you can see all of those widgets are really easily laid out and if you slide across these are kind of your already open pages so you can move through those quickly and you can swipe across and get
To your different pages that you’ve used recently which is just like a smartphone really the map is really really good I’m not actually sure if this is a Google map system I don’t think it is but it looks extremely similar and it works very well as well as you can see you
Also have your EV Chargers which are loaded into here too the car when it gets low will try and navigate you to a charger if you need it to as well which are all very clever systems it also just like the aura has a personal assistant
Which will help you out now it doesn’t have a little robot or it doesn’t have a dog like you have in the smart hashtag one but it does work very well High byd turn down my fan speed sorry again turn down fan speed got it decreasing fan speed by
One of course it can do all the usual things like navigate you to different areas and it can also do things like this hi byd open passengers window can I do something for you open passenger window she got there eventually it usually takes a couple of tries but although
This seems a bit gimmicky just like the screen which moves this is really handy because if you’re getting used to a new system rather than digging around in this screen to find things like your climate control which aren’t always the easiest to get to you can use your voice
Activation instead to get to those shortcuts as you can see that’s taken me a little while even to work out how to turn on the heated seat but I could just say hi byd turn on driver’s seat heating okay turning on seat Heating in the driver’s seat and that’s probably an
Easier way of doing it for now it’s available in just two specifications the comfort and the design the Comfort model is available in solid colors like cream pink and purple and the design adds the option of two-tone paint the dolphin Comfort models are priced from £ 29,40 with the top grade design
Specifications adding the panoramic sunroof rear privacy glass and wireless phone charging coming in at 3,990 currently the car is fitted with a £ 150 KW motor and a 60.5 KW usable capacity battery however there are plans to introduce two new versions in the future the entrylevel version known as
The active will have a smaller 70 k K motor and a smaller 44.9 kwh usable capacity battery it will have an official range of 2 miles there will also be a mid-spec boost version with the same battery size but a more powerful 130 kilowatt motor with an
Official range of 195 mil these models are expected to go on sale in the next couple of months and will drop the price to starting price of £26,000 and whilst we wait for that less powerful cheaper version of the dolphin let’s talk about the model that I’m
Driving this is the 60.4 KW battery 2011 brake horsepower around 260 M and not to 62 in under 7 Seconds which is quicker than the ID3 and the cpra born if you don’t go for the sporty one which is quite an enticing package sure for a car
Like this it’s not really necessary to have a really quick KN to 62 time but it is helpful when you want to quickly accelerate out situations and let’s face it that’s one of the big benefits of an electric vehicle but in day-to-day driving I find it power is great it has
This nice buildup of power it’s not instant so it’s not jerking you around which I know some other EVS have fallen foul of now when this car was first released it was actually released on some cheap Chinese tires and the wheels did spin up quite a lot but it’s now on
Some Hancock and they’re a little bit better it does still spin a tiny bit if it’s been very wet and I’m looking at the sky now and hoping it’s not going to start to rain but they’ve dealt with a lot of that and it spins a lot less and
I’d say 90% of the time it really does well in putting the power down exactly how you’d like it to now overall the rear design of the dolphin is quite simplistic but I love how they’ve added some small design elements which just give it a bit of a dynamic feel so
You’ve got this crease down the rear doors and you’ve also got a crease under Under The Lights as well I quite like that you’ve also got this textured rear quarter which matches with the front bit of textured material as well and you’ve also got this quite cool light bar so
You’ve got some twisty lights in there now the build your dreams unfortunately is not able to be removed on the dolphin you can remove it on the ATO 3 and you don’t even get it on the seal but because it’s in the light bar you can’t
Get rid of it but I think it kind of works with those swirly light designs which I really think look quite nice at night now the dolphin has been quite heavily criticized when it comes to boot space and I think that’s unfair so it gets
345 l so that’s not quite as much as the ID3 or the mg4 but it is more than the Renault Zoe and it’s around 100 L more than the orat so I think it’s quite practical you also get this nice flat load area and you get tons of underfloor
Boot storage as well so you can keep your cables all messy out of sight the one another positive that you get with a dolphin is you still get a rear wiper even if it is absolutely tiny so that’s all very positive but what about rear space well these rear
Doors could possibly open a little bit wider but I can’t see you having any issues with getting child seats in and it’s quite easy to climb into it’s not that high off of the ground and once you are inside yeah it’s pretty good head rooms a little bit tight that’s possibly a bit
Tighter than I was expecting with this pan roof you kind of have a slight dip in the ceiling which comes down here but of course if you put your head back then I’ve got quite a lot more head room but leg rooms brilliant I’ve got loads of
Leg room so if you’ve got passengers with long legs they’ll be fine but if they’ve got tall bodies they might struggle slightly there seems to be quite a lot of space in between the benches so if I go across to the middle seat yeah that’s quite an impressive
Middle seat actually I think you can quite comfortably sit three children back here especially because the center console doesn’t come too far back so everyone’s got lots of leg room it’s also got a decent amount of amenities which I can see you’ve got little pockets on these seats you’ve got a
Bigger one there and then little ones for your smartphones you’ve also got two USBC charge points you’ve got a cup holder there nice deep door cards yeah it’s pretty good have I got armrest yep I’ve got an armrest two cup holders haven’t got any pop out kind of iPad
Holdings which is a bit of a shame for a company which builds iPads and I can see I’ve got two isofix fitments back here and I’ve also got a third one on the passenger seat as well so overall it’s pretty good other than a slight lack of Headroom one thing which has really
Pleasantly surprised me about this car is just how well refined it feels considering this is a slightly cheaper car it really does soak a lot of the bumps up on the roads and I must say I’m currently on the pothole ridden back rows of suffk but it’s dealing with it
Really well now this may be because of two things one it rides on some pretty small tires we’re obsessed with putting massive wheels on things in the UK think of the ID3 and the cpra born whereas because this has smaller Wheels it definitely rides a lot nicer and also
This larger battery version it has a a multi-link setup suspension so it’s actually quite an advanced system if you go for the smallest battery the entry level which is coming later on that is going to get a rear torsion beam so I don’t know if it’s going to ride quite
As well but you do also have to remember that it’s lighter so actually those things may may balance themselves out but as I said I will have to double check when I test drive that car but overall I’m really impressed I’m just about to do a bit of a turn in the road
Mod as well of course it’s got a really good turning Circle really Nimble the steering is nice and light if you’re after a sporty car this isn’t it and one thing I’ve also noted is it feels again a lot like the Zoe to drive you kind of
Feel like you’re in a little bubble whereas if you drive the ID3 the ca born or the mg4 you sit down a little bit lower it feels a bit sportier this feels less sporty in its Drive which is ironic because it’s actually quicker than those cars that’s again why I say I
Think it will suit the smaller battery but overall I’m actually really impressed the last thing I’m impressed with is the economy as well so I was a little bit concerned because some people said that this car wasn’t all that economical and they said that though it
Says it will do 260 mil it’s more like 190 and I haven’t been seeing that now I’ve been getting around 4 miles per kilow hour which is quite good and I’ve did a long journey yesterday 60% less left it was reading that I had I think
It was 40 miles and it was 120 back and I made it with 10 to spe so I only lost about 10 miles and that was on mainly motorways but I was sticking to around 65 to reserve as much as possible now that was perfect segue into the next
Thing I want to talk about and that’s the Safety Systems so just like the other Chinese car that I drove the aura this does have quite a few Safety Systems and some of quite intrusive it does have the kind of bleeps when you go over the speed limit which is fine
Because most of the time it’s quite helpful and you should be doing the speed limit but when I was on the motorway yesterday it thought the speed limit was 60 on a dual carriageway so it’s not perfect a lot of people also complained in the first drives about the
Steering assistance and the lane assist they said it was very very grabby and it pulled you across the road now they also said that byd were going to look into this and turn it down down and make it not quite so aggressive and I think they’ve done that because this is a lot
Less aggressive than the aura that I drove in fact it’s so much less aggressive that I have no need to turn it off of course it does come on when you drift across the lanes but as long as you indicate it’s no problem and I haven’t found it picking up strain
Markings on the road so overall I’m really impressed with the Safety Systems they’re there to help you but they’re not too intrusive the dolphin is a vehicle which I must admit at first I overlooked I’d heard good things but in practice I didn’t really know how good
It could be but since I’ve been spending time with this car I kind of start to love it more and more sure it’s not perfect and I do think there’s some slightly more interesting Vehicles like the mg4 or perhaps the new Renault 5 which may outlow the dolphin but I
Really think it’s a good well-rounded package it offers value for money especially if you go for those slightly cheaper versions and I think that’s the one I’d actually go for I don’t think if you’re just driving this car to the shops and back you need 260 mil I think the smaller
Battery with the smaller price tag would be the one to go for but let me know what do you think of the BD dolphin pop it in the comments down below I really hope you have enjoyed this video today guys if you have go ahead and give it a
Big thumbs up and if you want to see more then go ahead and hit the Subscribe button until next time see you later n
If you’re looking for a fun little electric city car then could the Dolphin be a good option over rivals like the MG4?
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