BYD Seal U DM-i Design (2025)

THIS is monumental. Prepare to be shocked.

Chinese car manufacturer BYD, whose raison d’etre is electric vehicles, has brought out a new model…wait for it…with a petrol engine under the bonnet. What does that say about the future?

Seal U DM-i is a petrol/electric hybrid and it arrives just as Donald Trump takes power and the oil barons rub their hands in glee.

Global warming is a figment of the imagination apparently and everything is going to be great so why try and clean up the atmosphere?

But don’t worry BYD has the answer to that as well. When the ice caps melt and the sea level rises to put out the fires in California, one of the 19-strong model line-up is amphibious so we won’t drown. Perhaps that’s why BYD models take an oceanic theme.

Seal U DM-i is the perfect compromise for those torn between electric and internal combustion.

EVs are great to drive being fast, quiet and economical, as long as you have a home charger. But they also come with a big dollop of range anxiety and, if you don’t have a home charger and have to use public ones, a world of grief, uncertainty and boredom as you fight for a charger and wait 90 minutes to top up.

Petrols are much easier to live with because there’s a fuel station on every corner and it takes about five minutes to fill up. But they aren’t as fast, quiet or friendly on the environment, though they do hold their values better.

What a dilemma – until now. In the Seal U DM-i BYD has produced an SUV that features the class-leading Blade battery and super-efficient plug-in electric motors from the EV range but with a 1.5 litre petrol motor slotted in under the bonnet. So no range anxiety and all the benefits of an EV.

When it can, Seal runs in electric and that is lovely because it is incredibly swift and extremely quiet. The Design spec version gets twin electric motors so you also get all-wheel-drive for added grip. When there is snow and ice on the ground this is brilliant and it shrugs off the winter stuff with care-free abandon.

There’s a readout on the dashboard that tells you how much charge is left and it never seems to drop below 20 per cent. That’s because the turbo-charged petrol is there to back up the EV and there is also regeneration putting charge back into the battery from the kinetic energy created by braking.

It’s a great system and when you need maximum performance both elements work together to produce an impressive 324PS of power. That gives Seal a sprint time of 5.9 seconds to 62mph, which is crazily quick for a large SUV.

The excellent suspension and all-wheel-drive offer confident handling and fabulous grip. If you enjoy driving you are going to love it and if you don’t you will like it as well, especially as it is priced at an incredible value-for-money level of just over £39,000.

Just like the saloon version of the Seal, the U DM-i is a very attractive vehicle. It is large and practical and curvaceous and appealing from any angle.

The interior is excellent too with oodles of technology and a high specification. There’s a big touchscreen which has to be used for most of the driving functions. As a dedicated Luddite I simply have to sit down and learn the system. Once I do it’s just fine to use and I love pressing the switch that turns the large screen from landscape to portrait. I’m such a sucker for a gimmick.

U DM-i is a substantial vehicle with bags of space in the well-appointed interior and boot. Everything is well-thought out and beautifully made but that’s not too surprising given that BYD employs 600,000 people, including 90,000 engineers and 80,000 boffins in research and development so they should have plenty of time to perfect their ideas.

Seal U DMI-i is a game-changer because it says that there is still a place in the automotive world for fossil fuels, but, for maximum efficiency, they need to be used in harmony with electricity.

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