BYD published the official images of its new economic model called Seagal. BYD Seagull is an electric hatchback with a base price of $11,600 (less than 600 million Tomans), which is considered a competitive price in the world of electric cars. The official images of BYD Seagal were released on March 30th, and it will be released on April 18th.
BYD Seagull (Seagull) is developed based on the third generation platform of this company and comes with an electric motor code TZ180XSH. The output of this engine will be 55 kW (74 hp) or 75 kW (100 hp) depending on the type of car. The BYD seagull will use lithium iron phosphate batteries, which provide a maximum range of 405 km according to the CLTC cycle for this car in the highest version.
The maximum speed of Seagull is 130 km/h. It was previously announced that BYD Seagull will be equipped with NMC batteries. However, due to the high price of sodium ion batteries, the Chinese car manufacturer has stopped putting them in their cars. These batteries require a high percentage of precious metals such as cobalt and nickel. BYD has promised to use sodium ion batteries in its electric vehicles. These batteries do not contain lithium and therefore the cost of their production will be much lower than similar samples.
BYD Seagal, higher price with different batteries!
According to BYD, the price of the Seagull model will be between 80,000 to 100,000 yuan ($11,600 to $15,600). The official announcement of the Chinese company once again shows the lack of confirmation of the initial information provided by BYD. Previously, at the time of the initial introduction of BYD Seagal, the base price of this car was announced at $9,500. However, BYD has now raised the base price of its electric hatchback to over $11,000.
Of course, BYD dealers are allowed to supply cars with a flexible price and do not need to follow the official rate. Currently, a price war has started in the field of electric cars. This price war has been started since the beginning of 2023 by Tesla, and in response, other brands have reduced the prices of their electric and internal combustion vehicles. For example, the price of BMW i3 has been reduced to $14,000.
Specifications and competitors
BYD Seagull is part of the new product line of this company called Ocean. As an affordable car, this car ranks lower than BYD Dolphin. Other cars in this line are the products of BYD Seal and Sea Lion, which will be released in the second quarter of 2023.
The dimensions of BYD Seagal include 3780/1715/1540 mm with a distance between two axles of 2500 mm and can be selected with a 4-seater or 5-seater configuration. Two battery options of 30 kWh and 38 kWh can be selected for this car, which provide the user with a range of 305 and 405 km, respectively.
This car will face two big competitors in China. The first competitor is Walling Bingo from the joint venture of Psych and General Motors, which challenges the BYD seagull with a weaker 50 kW motor and a lower price of $7,500. Its other competitor is the Sohool EX10 from the Jack and Volkswagen joint venture, which has a shorter range but supports fast charging.
