LATEST NEWS
Sealion 7 set to join BYD push
Richard Bosselman
February 19, 2025
New model comes as China’s most successful car maker seeks to regain health here.
EMBATTLED BYD has begun effort to lift its game after a disastrous 2024 with release of another model, this one aiming to take on Tesla’s top seller here.
China’s most bullish electric brand enjoyed huge success in many countries last year - but New Zealand was a big exception.
Here its volume in 2024 was well down on 2023, with an 81.5 percent fall in its electric vehicle performance, a much greater drop than many involvers in that sector felt. The only other one to be as battered was Tesla.
BYD is primarily an electric car specialist and that’s how it represented when it began its foray into NZ in 2023 with the fully battery-compelled Atto3.
That compact SUV initially soared, with 3171 first year registrations, but then lost significant form last year, a period when BYD also began to start selling plug-in hybrid cars here.
However, despite a broadening range, it achieved just 686 EV sales, and barely 1000 units overall.
The BYD Sealion 7 that has been announced for sale is a return to fully electric form, becoming its fourth electric product here.
It is a medium five seater sports utility with coupe styling derived from the Seal sedan, but also with DNA shared with the Sealion 6 PHEV that hit NZ last year.
It is produced in singe (rear-drive) and dual motor - so, all-wheel-drive.
There will be a Premium in rear drive, and a Performance AWD, both with an 82.56kWh battery shared with the Seal sibling.
Power is respectively rated at 230kW/380Nm and 390kW/690Nm for claimed 0-100kmh times of 6.7 and 4.5 seconds respectively.
They also respectively deliver claimed driving ranges in European WLTP testing of 482km with rear-wheel drive or 456km with all-wheel drive.
DC fast charging at up to 150kW is cited – for a 10-80 percent recharge time of 32 minutes, based on European data.
The car sells in another right-hand drive market, the United Kingdom, with an even larger battery for even stronger range and faster replenishing. However, it seems that variant is not for this part of the world.
The Sealion 7 is longer but lower than a Tesla Model Y, at 4830mm long, 1925mm wide and 1620mm tall, on a 2930mm wheelbase.
BYD NZ’s on-line announcement about the car referred just to the Premium, which it says will sell for $67,990, plus on roads. That’s around $5000 less than the cheapest Model Y, in its just-landed facelift form. Independent reports put the Performance at $79,990.
