Long-term reviews are available: https://driveauthority.com/is-byd-reliable-after-5-years/

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/byd/dolphin-surf/long-t...

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/byd/atto-3/long-term-re...

They're now quite popular in the UK, along with Jaecoo, although not a huge number of them are pure-EV. Since I have been in the market for a car recently, I've been carspotting to see what's actually on the roads, and looking out for green-flash plates. VW and Tesla seem to be the carspotting winners so far. Autocar (and other reviewers) are mad about the Renault 5, which does look extremely good. I have an Abarth(!) 600E on lease-order, which I will review for HN eventually.

It is very funny that the Seagull had to be renamed Surf because Brits hate seagulls, though.

I own a Sealion 7 since August. Build quality is much better than European brands like BMW or Audi, it really feels premium. I'm loving this car.

> Maybe there's still time?

I don't know that there is. It takes ages to develop an EV-focused platform, and the lines to manufacture it. Tesla is the only American manufacturer that has already done that work, and they're circling the drain. Aside from them, there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt. All of the top-of-the-line EVs are Korean or Chinese, and the 2nd tiers are all European. America's EVs aren't even on the horizon, they'll be playing catchup for decades.

It will absolutely happen. BYD is already in Mexico and the door has been opened in Canada.

It’ll happen eventually, it’s an economic certainty. And when it finally does it probably won’t be that bad for the American consumer buying a car.

The real loss is the international trade and the effect that’ll have on the overall economy. Mexico and Canada will already be dominated by Chinese cars and it’ll be too late to compete.

I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

While America is slow, the transition is happening. There are a fair number of electric cars on the road. Some like the cybertruck are obvious, but there are a lot of cars that come in ICE or EV variants that you can't tell and people are talking. Don't lose hope.

It will happen. My guess is that Canada is BYD’s pilot into the US. They have very similar buyer characteristics and the Canadian tariff deal allows them to enter the market without taking the risks of local factories.

It won’t take much to get BYD access to the US. It’s a two-step process:

- Toss a million bucks at Trump or wait for a Democratic administration

- Build a plant in Alabama/Tennessee/South Carolina/Georgia

That’s literally all it takes.

From Canada's perspective, China is willing to cooperate even through conflict, and the US is literally threatening to invade.

Same question, but for Tesla and the proposed US invasion of Canada.

(one of those things which the POTUS says that we're all told shouldn't be taken as serious or real, as if that wasn't a massive disqualification for him)

> Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?

Why is that ironic? The US talks about stealing/preventing others from stealing stuff from them too, not sure why this would be surprising.

> This will be a logistical challenge for the grid but absolutely fantastic for BYD owners in particular.

Interestingly BYD actually puts batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak" to minimise the strain on the grid. So often times cars will actually charge from that battery instead of directly from the grid.

> And this is fantastic for EV owners in general, assuming the charging network is open to all.

Given that the job descriptions seem to include working with local subsidy programs, I sure hope the Canadian government is going to require an open standard or adding more DC chargers under existing standards.

Significant work has been done on the "dendritic" failure mode of electrodes, where crystals grow from one electrode to another and may punch through separator membranes. This has gradually increased cell lifetimes. Now it's all down to temperature. Control-loop monitoring has got a lot better than "shove X amps in there and hope for the best".

There's been a lot of study into this already and the forming consensus is that fast DC charging is less of an issue on battery longevity than was first thought. In cars with decent thermal management systems it seems to have a fairly limited effect on battery lifetime as opposed to natural calendar aging.

Even if it did, this type of rapid charging only happens on long road trips.

I don’t specifically know for this type of battery but I’ve looked at pretty in-depth analysis of smartphone batteries (way less sophisticated battery management tech) and fast versus slow charging made very little lifespan difference. The best mitigations were fewer cycles and keeping the battery in its sweet spot (not discharging to 0% and charging to 100%)

Fast charging appears to damage batteries less than expected. There are lots of reports of taxis which almost exclusively used fast charging with over 200,000 miles on their battery.

Of course that is normal fast charging. Flash charging is 3x or more faster, so that's unknown.

Overall it's less the lone act of moving ions and more the heat that affects battery longevity.

BYD is using, among other methods, a "3D direct refrigerant cooling system", so the batteries are dipped in phase-changing coolant.

Aside from that the cells are pre-warmed and were optimised for lower internal resistance.

Probably a bit but here’s the thing: if charging fast is, well….faster…then people care less if they loose a little extra battery because getting it back is less inconvenient.

There’s a graph i imagine here where slow charging, you want to retain all capacity. Faster it gets, you tolerate more battery loss.

I looked, but didn't find anything. Perhaps it's too early to tell?

That’s the exact model they follow in Brasil - they ship over the car without seats or a steering wheel, install them in Brazil with a Chinese labour force, declare it Brazilian made, pay no tariffs on the parts or the final vehicle.

There’s an aspirational goal of at least 50% Brazilian parts, but its currently 0%.

Some US politicians were proposing a total ban on allowing cars of Chinese origin into the US, which is rather extreme. They don't want to risk US nationals seeing them and wanting them.

No, it is a marketing term relating to the chargers BYD is deploying. According to the article the chargers can charge a car with enough electricity to provide a range of 400km in around 5 minutes. Another separate, but important, factor is that these chargers apparently work very well in winter and can provide a similar charging speed at -20°C.

You must be confused with the Jeep recall where even parked cars just spotaneously catch fire.

It's insane to me how so many people bring up the idea of EVs catching fire when ICE vehicles are constantly having recalls for spontaneously catching fire.

I've had multiple recalls on multiple ICE cars advising me to not park the car near my house. I haven't with my EV.