Earlier this year at the Shanghai auto show, BYD surprised the global automotive industry with the launch of a compact city fully-electric car that had a starting price of under $A17,000. This car was named the BYD Seagull which sat underneath the Dolphin hatchback.
Now, just six months later, the company has announced that it’s produced 200,000 Seagulls, making it one of the fastest-selling electric cars in the market.
Images of this milestone were shared by BYD on the company’s official Weibo account and reported by cnevpost. It shows the green Seagulls rolling off the production line.
The Seagull’s growth has been due to the popularity of compact electric city cars in cities and so far it’s been successfully taken up by nearly 200,000 drivers across China.
At its launch, the BYD Seagull had over 10,000 orders in just 24 hours, hinting at the sheer demand for an affordable electric city car in the market.
This car has also seen great interest from other automakers as they aim to produce affordable electric cars for their respective markets. At the launch of the Seagull, BYD’s Shanghai auto show stand saw executives from Volkswagen around the stall where it was being showcased.
The BYD Seagull is offered in two batteries in the model. These will have 30.08 kWh and 38.88 kWh of capacity.
With the larger battery of 30.88 kWh, the Seagull’s batteries offer up to 405 km of CLTC range which is more likely to be around 300 km on the WLTP cycle.
These battery packs power a single-motor drivetrain that can deliver up to 55 kW of power which is zippy enough for a city car.
On another recent milestone, in September, BYD also announced that it had produced 500,000 Atto 3 electric SUVs – a major milestone for an all-electric vehicle that at that time had only been in production for 19 months.
With the BYD brand having global ambitions, it’s likely that the Seagull, just like many other models from BYD, will end up being exported to many parts of the world, including the possibility of this car being a candidate for Australia in the coming 24 months.
BYD Seagull review by Elliot from Fully Charged Show
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.