World’s leading EV maker BYD has achieved more than 1,000 bookings for its Seal luxury sport sedan in India. This feat has been achieved just two months after the Chinese company launched the Seal EV here at a starting price of INR 41 lakh (ex-showroom). The rising orderbook shows a strong demand for technologically-advanced and high performance electric vehicles.
BYD Seal is available in the Indian market in three variants – Dynamic, Premium, and Performance. It caters to a wide range of customers with different driving preferences. Seal Performance variant delivers an acceleration of 0-to-100 km/h in 3.8 seconds, while the Premium variant offers a driving range of 650 kilometres on a single charge.
The vehicle is available in four colours – Arctic Blue, Aurora White, Atlantis Gray and Cosmos Black.
At its starting price point, BYD Seal undercuts rivals like Hyundai Ioniq 5, BMW i4, and Kia EV6 in the Indian market. Globally, the Seal locks horns with the Tesla Model 3, which is one of the world’s top-selling electric vehicles. The performance EV is underpinned by the e-Platform 3.0 which has now been upgraded with the Cell to Body (CTB) technology. It integrates the battery and the vehicle body floor together to improve vehicle safety, cabin space, performance, stability and handling.
The in-house blade battery in the Seal provides the model with advanced safety, rigidity, more range, faster charging and longer lifespan. The blade battery has been put to nail penetration test before being integrated into the BYD Seal. Thanks to the CTB technology, the Seal’s battery pack has been sealed as part of the body using an integrated sealing plate design which increases its rigidity on the floor by 13 times.
In terms of safety, the Seal comes equipped with ADAS Level 2 features such as Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), and Blind Spot Detection (BSD), among others. It gets NFC card integration and nine airbags as well. The Seal tested for Euro NCAP and ANCAP last year and came out with flying colours, achieving five-star safety rating in both the tests.