The first “colony” of BYD Seals have been spotted at the docks car park in Brisbane as the Chinese car maker prepares to deliver the latest electric model to the Australian market, and increase its pressure on Tesla for market leadership.
Some BYD Seals have already been seen testing on Australian roads since earlier in the year, but it wasn’t until last month when the local distributor of the brand, EV Direct, officially launched the car into the Australian market with a price tag that surprised most in the industry. It has a starting price of $49,888 before on-roads.
The first photo of the newly arrived Seals was taken by Lewis J and shared on BYD Seal Australia Facebook group. It shows over 12 BYD Seals parked with possibly many more in that part of the car park.
Multiple colours were spotted with white and black making up many of the parked cars.
These are likely to be the first customer vehicles as the brand plans to deliver them to customers on this side of Christmas.
On the back of this sighting, an excited order holder replied by saying: “I think I can see my car there.”
There has been a high level of interest in this car since it launched last month. BYD’s local website crashed momentarily just after the launch as 50,000 visitors checked out the all-electric Seal.
The BYD Seal is the first electric sedan to have a starting price under the $50,000 mark in Australia. This comes in the form of the entry-level Dynamic variant which starts at $49,888 before on-roads.
It’s powered by a single-motor rear-wheel-drive powertrain that puts out up to 150 kW of power and up to 310 Nm of torque. This helps the car accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 7.5 seconds.
The Dynamic powertrain is paired with a BYD blade battery pack with a capacity of 61.44 kWh. This pack can provide up to up to 460 km of WLTP range.
When it comes to charging, the Dynamic Seal can be fast-charged at up to 110 kW when charged at a DC fast charger. Meanwhile, AC charging of 7 kW is available across all variants.
The Premium and Performance trims which start at $58,798 and $68,748 before on-roads respectively are paired with an 82 kWh battery pack. This pack has increased fast-charging speeds of up to 150 kW at the right charger.
BYD Seal was also awarded a five-star ANCAP rating, making it one of the safest vehicles on Australian roads.
There appears to be a fair bit of interest in BYD’s third electric offering into the market after selling over 12,000 Atto 3s and the more affordable Dolphin hatchback.
The Seal represents a halo performance-orientated car for the brand in Australia and with these first sightings, customers looking to get behind the wheel of one won’t be waiting too long.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.