BYD Seal U Review & Prices

The BYD Seal U is a spacious family SUV with a clever plug-in hybrid powertrain that offers big car space for small car money – and it’s a tempting alternative to a fully electric car for company car buyers.

Because it promises running costs and emissions not far off an EV, but with the security of a petrol engine as backup, it’s a bit like investing half your savings in forward-thinking cryptocurrency, but keeping the other half in an old school bank account, just for peace of mind.

Similarly sized plug-in hybrid SUVs include the Hyundai Tucson, Ford Kuga and Volkswagen Tiguan, but the BYD Seal U undercuts all of these on price. Significantly. It costs about the same as a hybrid-engined Kia Niro or Jeep Renegade, both of which are smaller cars. The MG HS is the key alternative, though, offering a bigger boot for less cash.

The BYD Seal U starts on the back foot because of its design. It’s about as stylish as a white t-shirt, grey jogging bottoms and a pair of Crocs. The Kuga is subtly posh, the Tucson has an in-yer-face grille, but the Seal U looks like every other SUV was popped into a blender and this was the result. It somehow looks like nothing else and everything all at once.

It’s a bit better inside, where BYD has ditched the quirky cabins of the all-electric Seal and Atto 3, and gone for a much more conventional look. It’s pretty plain, but the materials look posh enough for the price point, and everything feels well screwed together.

Tech is a highlight, though. This might be a cheap car but you still get a massive touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard. The graphics are crisp and it’s iPad-fast to respond to your inputs. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto look fantastic and fill the screen, and there are some clever gestures that let you quickly change the temperature without having to fiddle with menus on the move.

Storage is so-so, with average-sized door bins and glovebox, though you do get a deep cubby hole beneath the armrest and space to charge two phones wirelessly as standard. Space is much more impressive. There’s loads of room in the front, and while headroom in the rear is a touch tight for particularly tall passengers, there’s loads of legroom, making it ideal for a child seat, too.

The boot is 425 litres, which is a useful if not massive space. Still, it’s more room than you get in similarly priced plug-in hybrids such as the Jeep Renegade, though pricier mid-sized SUVs such as the Hyundai Tucson and Volkswagen Tiguan offer considerably bigger boots. The slightly cheaper MG HS offers 507 litres, though.

The petrol-electric engine is a real highlight. Most of the time the electric motor is powering the wheels and the petrol engine acts like a generator to provide additional power or top up the battery. As a result acceleration is leisurely but very smooth, and even when the petrol engine does kick in it’s quiet and refined. It’s a similar setup to the Nissan Qashqai e-Power, but works much more convincingly.

Mid-spec Comfort models (coming soon…) get a bigger battery and as a result have a huge 77-mile electric-only range, which makes it super cheap for company car buyers and should keep running costs right down if you can keep the batteries topped up.

The problem? While the powertrain is smooth and refined, the Seal U is let down by pretty much every other aspect of the driving experience. The suspension is very good at soaking up big lumps and undulations, but it’s so soft that you wallow and wobble about all the time. Prepare for motion sickness from those in the back. And if you hit sharp imperfections, such as small speed bumps or potholes, you get an aggressive judder through the cabin.

On top of this the steering is so light that you have little sense of a connection with the front wheels. This is good in slow-speed traffic, but means country roads are a bit of an adventure. Once on the motorway it weights up but not intuitively, so you sometimes feel like the wheel is gently fighting against your inputs.

Overall, then, the BYD Seal U is a tempting option if you’re looking for a family SUV that maxes out on space and affordability, or want to bring your company car tax down without going fully electric. But it should be avoided if you have a keen interest in driving; budget–allowing, pretty much every alternative is more fun behind the wheel. It’s a shame, because the all-electric Seal with which it (sort of) shares a name is great to drive.

You can check out the latest BYD Seal U deals through Carwow, or browse used BYD cars from our network of trusted dealers, and when it’s time to sell your current car, Carwow can help with that, too.

Okay, so the BYD Seal U isn’t great to drive, but you might not care at all when you find out how much it costs. The entry-level Boost model, which has a smaller battery and front-wheel drive, costs a bit less than plug-in hybrid versions of the Kia Niro and Jeep Renegade, which are much smaller, less practical cars. If you want similarly sized PHEV models, the Seal U is about £6,000 less than a Hyundai Tucson, and £9,000 less than a Volkswagen Tiguan. Both those cars are more practical, nicer inside and better to drive, but those savings are huge.

The MG HS is the main alternative, really. It actually costs a fraction less than the Seal U and has a bigger boot, but it's worth bearing in mind that MG came bottom of the latest Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, while BYD is a bit more of an unknown quantity long-term.

Even the Seal U's top-spec Design model doesn’t break £40,000, meaning you won’t have to pay any extra annual road tax. For the cash you get an extra electric motor that provides all-wheel drive, and more power overall. Equipment is identical between trims.

The mid-spec Comfort model isn’t on sale yet, but when it comes it will have the less powerful petrol engine with a single electric motor, but a bigger battery that offers that impressive 77 miles of electric-only range.

The hybrid engine is impressively quiet and refined, but otherwise the BYD Seal U is disappointing to drive

In town

The BYD Seal U is really easy to drive around town because the suspension is incredibly soft and the steering is really light, so it’s little effort to nip about in traffic. However, that soft suspension means that the car never really settles and feels like it’s always wobbling around over undulations in the road. Then if you hit a pothole or a small speed bump it sends a shudder through the cabin.

Fortunately the hybrid system is excellent – the Seal U drives like an electric car, because if you’ve got a good amount of charge you’ll barely use the petrol engine, and when it does kick in to help top the battery up, you can hardly hear a thing. Often this type of hybrid is accompanied by an annoyingly noisy petrol engine that distracts from the smooth EV-like driving experience, so this really is impressive for the Seal U.

Visibility is good looking forward, but the rear window is quite small and the view over your shoulder is poor. Assistance kit is hugely impressive though, with front and rear parking sensors and a 360-degree camera making it easier to park in a tight spot.

On the motorway

Once up to speed on the motorway the cabin is generally pretty hushed; though a bit of tyre noise is noticeable it’s not too intrusive. Like at town speeds, when the petrol engine is called upon it is really quiet, even when you’re accelerating quickly down a motorway slip road or pulling off an overtake.

The suspension is less annoying at higher speeds, but you still get that odd sensation that the car takes a while to settle after undulations in the road. The steering gets a bit heavier at higher speeds, but it feels unnatural, like you have a hint of resistance to push through, which can make smooth lane changes a bit of a challenge.

Again though, standard equipment is impressive, with adaptive cruise control that can maintain your speed and distance to the car in front, and a system that keeps you centred in your lane, taking the strain out of longer drives.

On a twisty road

The BYD Seal U isn’t great to drive around town or on the motorway, but it does at least have redeeming features if you’re not too worried about how well a car drives. However, if you want to enjoy taking the scenic route home on a twisty, then this is one SUV to avoid.

The steering is so light that you have no idea what the front wheels are doing, meaning it’s difficult to judge where you are on the road, how much steering input is required, and how much grip you have. The body also leans a lot in corners, which is really unnerving. The Ford Kuga is considerably more expensive, but lightyears ahead in terms of driver enjoyment.

Cabin storage isn’t amazing, but the BYD Seal U has really roomy back seats and a decent-sized boot

The BYD Seal U is pretty roomy for those in the front, and there’s a decent amount of adjustability in the driver’s seat and steering wheel to get a comfortable driving position.

Storage is fine but it’s about the minimum you would expect – the door bins are okay but you might struggle to fit a big bottle inside, and the glovebox is an average size. The cubby hole under the armrest is really deep though, making it a great place to hide things out of sight. You get two cup holders ahead of this with grips on the edge so your drink doesn’t fall over, and a pair of wireless phone charging pads beneath the screen.

Space in the back seats

Rear seat space is similarly impressive. If you’re over six-feet tall you might start to feel your head is brushing the headlining surrounding the panoramic glass roof, but it’s fine for most, and even your lankiest friends will have no complaints about kneeroom. The upside of that is the fact that you will be able to fit even the bulkiest of child seats in the back with ISOFIX mounting points in the outer seats. As with the front, though, storage isn’t fantastic, thanks to fairly small door bins and not a lot else.

Boot space

At 425 litres the BYD Seal U’s boot should be adequate for most people most of the time. Similarly priced alternatives such as the Kia Niro (358 litres) generally have smaller capacity boots, though the other bargain SUV, the MG HS, has more at 507 litres.

Similarly sized (and much more expensive) options tend to have more boot space. For example, the plug-in hybrid Hyundai Tucson gets a 558-litre boot and the Volkswagen Tiguan has a huge 652 litres on offer.

The Seal U’s boot has a square space that’s easy to pack and there are small cubbies at each side to give you somewhere to hold smaller items. There’s basically no underfloor storage though, so if you want to carry your charging cables with you they’ll have to sit in the main boot compartment.

You can fold the rear seats but you have to do it using a lever next to the seat, rather than being able to do it from the boot itself. Once the seats are folded there’s 1,440 litres of space available, but there’s a big lip that makes it difficult to push long, heavy items through.

The infotainment system is excellent and most materials are decent for the price, but the design is pretty plain and cheap plastics are never far away

Jump into the driver’s seat of the BYD Seal U and first impressions are pretty good. Sure, the design is pretty plain, with a simple panel across the centre of the dashboard that flows down in the central area between the seats, but the materials all look good quality.

Poke and prod around and there aren’t too many squishy plastics, but when you consider that this SUV hugely undercuts similarly sized alternatives on price, it’s more than adequate quality inside.

That big central touchscreen is more than adequate, though. It measures a massive 15.6 inches and floats separately from the dashboard. It feels like it could be angled slightly more towards the driver, but the graphics are sharp and it responds instantly to your touch. It’s not the most intuitive menu system to navigate around, but Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work seamlessly and fill the screen. You can also rotate the screen if you prefer it to be portrait-orientated, which is a neat trick.

The BYD Seal uses a 1.5-litre petrol engine that works with a single motor in the Boost and Comfort trims to offer front-wheel drive, or two motors in the Design trim that makes it all-wheel drive.

In both the Boost and Design trims, the electric motors are powered by an 18.2kWh battery that offers a range of up to 50 miles for Boost models or 43 miles in Design. If you want maximum economy it’s worth waiting for the Comfort model, because that has a 26.6kWh battery that increases the range to a hugely impressive 77 miles.

The upshot of this is that official CO2 emissions figures are incredibly low, meaning these models are cheaper for company car users than most hybrids and not far off electric cars, ideal if you’re concerned about going fully electric. For private buyers, all models fall below £40,000, which means you don’t have to pay the extra road tax in years two to six for cars that cost over that threshold.

Charging speeds aren’t particularly impressive, with a maximum of just 18kW on public DC chargers meaning it’s almost never going to be worth going to pricey fast chargers when out and about. However, a maximum AC rate of 11kW could be useful if you have access to chargers that can achieve that at home or, more likely, work, though most home charge points have a maximum charge rate of around 7kW.

The BYD Seal U scored the maximum five stars in Euro NCAP safety testing, with impressive ratings across the board. It achieved 90% for adult occupant protection, 86% for child occupants, 83% for vulnerable road users, and 77% for its safety assist systems.

With equipment largely identical between trims, you get loads of assistance kit as standard. Some of the highlights include adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance to keep you centred in your lane, alerts for traffic passing in front or behind the car when manoeuvring, and front and rear collision warning. You get the usual ISOFIX points in the outer rear seats, but there’s also another in the front passenger seat.

It’s unclear how reliable BYD’s cars will be. The brand is very new to the UK and hasn’t sold enough cars to register in the Driver Power ownership survey.

You do get an excellent six-year warranty though, with a limit of 93,750 miles if that comes up first. The battery gets a separate eight-year/125,000-mile warranty that guarantees it will retain 70% of its original capacity in that time.