BYD Dolphin (2023) first drive: new compact EV due in 2023

• BYD Dolphin: battery, motor and range
• What’s the interior like?
• What’s it like to drive?
• How much is it going to cost?
• Specs

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► BYD’s second offering in the UK is MG 4-sized EV hatch
► 265-mile range, heat pump standard
► Will launch later in 2023

This is the latest small electric car vying for your attention. The Dolphin is Chinese firm BYD’s smallest offering of the three electric cars it’ll bring to the UK in 2023 – below the Atto 3 SUV and Seal saloon. In size terms, it’s within a hair of the MG 4 – making it seem a natural rival for both smaller hatchbacks such as the Vauxhall Corsa Electric as well as the likes of the MG, the VW ID.3 and the Kia Niro EV.

Apart from the silly name, the Dolphin seems like it will quite a lot of reasons to recommend it when it hits the UK market later in 2023, and could well trouble some of the best small electric cars on sale. Here are our first thoughts from plenty of poking around as well as a quick squiz on a test track in Spain.

BYD Dolphin: battery, motor and range

The Dolphin rides on the same scalable ‘e-Platform 3.0’ as its larger siblings. Here it’s graced with a 60kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery built with BYD’s ‘Blade’ structure. That’s good for a claimed WLTP range of 265 miles.

The front-mounted motor sends 201bhp to the front wheels, and 0-62mph is dispatched in 7.1 seconds. A smaller battery option, likely similar to the 44kWh pack used on Chinese market models, will follow later.

It’ll charge at a maximum of 88kW from a suitably powerful DC charger, which is appreciably slower than most rivals. BYD claims 30-80% in 29 minutes, which sounds fine until you spot that competitors claim similar times starting at 10%. 11kW AC charging is standard, though, so if you’re blessed with a three-phase supply at home or work you’ll see good speeds.

Also standard is a heat pump, a useful inclusion especially on a budget EV – it should mean more of the car’s range is retained in winter.

What’s the interior like?

For a start, spacious. Those disappointed by the slightly tight rear legroom in an MG 4 need look no further – the Dolphin can accommodate passengers well above 6 feet tall one behind each other with room to spare.

That space has to come from somewhere, and here it’s the boot. At 345 litres in capacity it’s not awful, but it’s tall rather than deep and split by a removable floor panel under which you can hide the charging cables. There’s no frunk, sadly.

Up front it’s also spacious, and the dash itself is quite low which makes the cabin feel airy. Large windows and, on some models, a massive panoramic roof help here too. The dash is swathed in soft-touch plastic and vegan leather (which is also, basically, soft-touch plastic) though there are some notably cheaper materials on the doors and lower down. The door handles are modelled after a dolphin’s flipper, which is quite a nice touch.

The dash is dominated by BYD’s trademark revolving touchscreen infotainment system. It’s a massive 12.6-inches on the diagonal and at the press of a switch will turn from landscape to portrait – with different orientations better for different use cases, BYD reckons. It’s a bit of a party piece but from our experience with it in an Atto you’ll probably leave it in landscape most of the time.

The hardware and software is the same as the Atto 3, which is to say that it’s fully featured and responsive if lacking a little bit of final polish. There’s just one too many layers of menu for things to be truly intuitive, and a mess of different fonts.

What’s it like to drive?

Our experience with the Dolphin was limited to a few runs between cones on a closed track – hardly representative of British tarmac, and the cars themselves hadn’t been tuned fully for European roads either. So we’ll hold off on making too strong a judgement on the Dolphin’s dynamic credentials for now.

What we can say is that performance is brisk and well-calculated – there’s little danger of performing unwanted burnouts, as the torque’s a little better modulated than some we could name (looking at you, MG 5). The steering’s light, though quite slow – there’ll be a lot of arm-twisting round city streets – and there’s an appreciable though not alarming level of body roll.

Refinement could be improved, though that could well be affected by tyre choice. BYD hinted that the Dolphin may come to the UK wearing Ling Long Comfort Master tyres, but one of the cars we tested was shod in Bridgestones, so fingers crossed. The Ling Longs suffered from a fair amount of roar, though we weren’t moving fast enough to make judgements on their grip levels.

Early impressions suggest the Dolphin will be resolutely biased towards comfort rather than dynamism – not necessarily a bad thing, given the state of the UK’s roads.

How much is it going to cost?

BYD’s targeting a price tag of 30,000 Euros for the European market. That’s about £26,500 as a direct conversion – we reckon a more realistic starting price for the UK will be about £28,000.

That’s still very cheap, substantially undercutting even the leanest Corsa Electric and only really challenged by the MG 4. It’ll be very well equipped, too – all Dolphins will come with the massive touchscreen, LEDs all round and niceties such as electric seats.

If that price tag is the case, the Dolphin will provide strong competition for the MG and should give Western and Korean brands a thing or two to think about as well. Though the MG is undeniably better to drive (at least based on our early impressions) the BYD excels in passenger comfort and has a trump card with that great interior.

BYD’s integration with its own supply chain (the larger BYD group manufactures almost all the Dolphin’s components) means you won’t have to wait months after ordering, either.

The Dolphin will debut as a static display at the Fully Charged Show at the end of April and should be on UK roads by September. We’ll be driving it ahead of this, and will bring you our full evaluation then.

Specs

Keyword: BYD Dolphin (2023) first drive: new compact EV due in 2023