In late May, an owner of a BYD Seal reported that BYD was working on a solution to allow the vehicle to have access to hundreds of Tesla supercharger stalls across the country with the help of a hardware and software fix.
Now, the Seal owner, Christopher H, has shared that he’s had the fix and was able to showcase his vehicle successfully charging at Tesla’s V3 and V4 supercharger sites. These charging sessions were shared on a Ludicrous Feed YouTube video.
In the update, the fix requires a hardware upgrade for pre-March 2024 build BYD Seal vehicles. This hardware includes a single replacement set of wires in a harness within the vehicle.
For Christopher’s BYD Seal to have this upgrade, it took about 30 minutes which showcases that it is a well-thought-out solution for the service teams undertaking the upgrade.
As part of the testing at Tesla supercharger sites, Christopher took his Seal to the Campbelltown V4 supercharger site which was until recently a V3 supercharger site. Now the site has longer cables making it easier to demonstrate the successful charging session.
From there, Figtree supercharger was also tested which currently has V3 stalls and it all appeared to work fine.
At both sites, the BYD Seal was able to be charged at over 90 kW which is very respectable as most non-Tesla public chargers are either 50 or 75 kW units across the country.
Tesla runs the most extensive and reliable EV charging network in the world. With 90 sites now open in Australia, it’s been steadily growing along with EV uptake across the country.
In September last year, the company opened up nearly half of its network to all other EVs, making it easier for many to road trip in an EV.
Since then, most EVs including BYD’s own Dolphin have been able to make use of hundreds of new reliable charging stations across the country.
The BYD Seal sedan has been a strong seller with customer deliveries starting in December 2023. Since then, the brand has sold just over 3,800 Seal vehicles over 6 months in the Australian market.
Around 2,000 of these had been delivered before April, indicating the number of pre-March build cars on Australian roads.
The successful use of Tesla superchargers for a pre-March 2024 build BYD Seal showcases a good start for a broader potential upgrade for existing BYD Seal and Atto 3 owners, helping them travel further in their EV.
However, some BYD owners are still reporting issues with Tesla Superchargers and other charging stations. One BYD Atto owner reported problems at both Tesla Superchargers and NRMA chargers at Tenterfield and Glen Innes in northern NSW, and was so frustrated had to book into a caravan park to trickle charge for 36 hours before being able to get home.
Do other BYD owners have similar problems? Let us know at [email protected] or in the comments section below.
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.