BYD Sealion 7

[Actan72]

On 2/25/2025 at 6:12 PM, steveting99 said:

All BYD BEV use their proprietary blade battery cells incorporating LFP rather than NMC chemistry. The important difference between LFP and NMC is the significant increase in the number of charge cycles available. LFP can do around 3,000 charge cycles while MNC can do about half at 1,500 charge cycles.

The State of Health (SOH) of the battery determines when it needs replacing. Generally the lower limit is around 70%. This means that after 3,000 cycles of 0% to 100% charge and discharge, the battery pack should reach around 70% SOH.  According to specs the Sealion 7 with a 82.5kWhr LFP battery pack will do a WLTP range of 480km. At worst case, the mileage is around 1,008,000 kms or roughly doing just a little bit over 50,000km / year for the next 20 years or two cycles of CoEs before the battery needs replacing. This is about twice the milage you are doing now - so no issue on the battery. With your current mileage, the battery will last around 40 years.   

i am not very sure on this... will stick to hybrid for the time being

[steveting99]

On 2/27/2025 at 12:58 PM, Actan72 said:

i am not very sure on this... will stick to hybrid for the time being

Below is the datasheet for a BYD LFP blade battery showing the capacity degradation depending on the number charge/discharge cycles it has undergone.

Note that after going through 3,000 charge/discharge cycles, the battery capacity is just under 85% - this is above the 70% cut off lower limit. The blade battery can still continue to work up to 5,000 charge/discharge cycles. One can argue this is of course in ideal laboratory conditions and not real world scenario. Actually real world driving conditions in cities improving the curve and battery life. This is due to the partial discharge/charge of the battery with stop and go traffic conditions. City driving can enhance the blade battery life up to 38% and recorded on Nature Energy study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01675-8

I've assumed 70% battery degradation after 3,000 charge/discharge cycles (worst case scenario) of BYD's LFP blade battery to get to 1 million kms battery lifespan for the Sealion 7. In real life, it'll be more than this. 

[steveting99]

The following youtube video from Bobby Ang is a how well the BYD Sealion 7 drives in Malaysia.

I was a bit shocked when Bobby compared the Sealion 7 to the premium conti vehicles like Audi, BMW, and mercedes Benz (aka ABB) and asked the tough question on what you're getting for the extra costs of a premium conti ICE vehicle? This is in terms of the Sealion's ride quality, handling, NVH, build quality, engineering, fit and finish, as well as the premium features on offer. Bobby says his Audi feels like a cheap car compared to the BYD Sealion 7!

If the Sealion 7 is challenging the premium conti vehicles, how are the B&B vehicles from the likes of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Kia going to compete against BYD? The Sealion 7 costs less than Toyota Harrier Hybrid or the RAV4 hybrid!

Edited March 2, 2025 by steveting99
Additional text for clarity

[Rocky35]

Mini-review after a few days with a Sealion7:

Good:

1. $200k to $210k for an SL7 "Premium" (which is the lower of the 2 available trim levels), is unbeatable value for money as far as I can tell.  Check the price of any car of similar size, interior quality, features. Or check the size and quality of cars in the same price bracket.  Only other PRC brands can fight the SL7.
2. Ride quality.  Very gentle over humps and manhole covers.  Like S-class (imho, serious).
3. "Comfort Parking" feature.  It automatically releases and re-applies brake at the last moments of reaching full-stop, to minimize the bounce-back-jerk.  (What other car has this now?)
4. Motorized fabric shade for the moon-roof. Xpeng G6 has a moon-roof with no shade.

Bad:

1. ICC "Intelligent Cruise Control" - actually means the auto-steering to maintain lane-center, but it is easily confused by messier road lines, irregular junctions, so feels not safe to use.  I switch off this feature, then the "ICC/ACC" button on the steering wheel will only activate "ACC", which is the just the cruise-control with 4 choices of car-following distance, including slowing to full-stop and moving off when car in front moves. Steer manually. And SL7 is not aware of traffic lights at all.
2. LDP "Lane departure prevention" is a milder form of ICC auto-steer above, it might not auto-steer to lane-center, but just steer you away from unintentionally crossing lane lines.  And it is only active in the range 60-150 km/h according to manual.
3. No massage seats.
4. The front 2 seats have "ventilation" (2-speed fan), but they require a few touches to turn on every time, it doesn't remember last state. Or you can say "seat ventilation" to the mic.  I wish there was a setting to just turn it on whenever the seats are occupied.
5. The IoT part of the car, it is not clear which features go thru the built-in mobile data (valid for first 2 years), and which features can work thru wifi.  When trying to remote operate the car from the phone app, I sometimes get the error that the car's internet connection is too poor.  But the car is at a basement that has good wifi and possibly poor mobile coverage.
6. Frunk cannot be opened from outside, it's a normal mechanical release under dashboard.

Neutral:

1. There are lots of settings to explore.
2. There will be many of these on our roads soon.

Overall happy with it.

If there's a Whatsapp/Telegram group chat for SL7 owners, PM me please.

Attached: photos of dabao hooks for the seats of the SL7 that I got from Shopee. This is as far as I could insert, one ridge remains exposed. Does not look as seamless as the photoshopped product photos on the Shopee listing.  But it does feel strong and secure.

[TurboSkyHawk]

More and more sealion on the road these few days. All buyers got their car already?

[Fellows]

 

[Jp66]

 

[mersaylee]

@Rocky35

On the bad no. 1...does the ICC/ACC button on the steering wheel (assuming it's the same one button for both functions) able to turn on/off the ICC or only via the touchscreen? 

[As7eroidS]

@TurboSkyHawk 

On 3/30/2025 at 1:21 PM, TurboSkyHawk said:

More and more sealion on the road these few days. All buyers got their car already?

except me........ this is the most hot selling SUV in the market for the past months and being priced too cheap (very value for money), more than 1000 units already sold and counting! 

Edited April 3, 2025 by As7eroidS

[Rocky35]

@mersaylee 

Yes I disabled ICC at touchscreen. The single "ICC/ACC" button on steering wheel simply starts (whatever type of) cruise control.  The exact type of cruise control is set via the touchscreen.  I was a bit confused by this button in the beginning too.  The voice announcement for this can be softened somewhere, and it always announces for the first few times you use it, per drive.  Afterwards it will shut up.

Lately, I have also switched off LANE DEPARTURE PREVENTION (LDP).  The GUI for this is slightly odd, you'll see. The options are WARNING, PREVENTION, BOTH.  So I used to choose "BOTH", but I got tired of the little nudges on the steering wheel, which I believe are the ADAS cameras being confused by irregular road markings.  So now I have chosen "WARNING" only.  This results in a ORANGE symbol always showing on your dashboard though.  Looks like a car in lane lines and crossed out, all in orange.  

[Mkl22]

Just saw one PHV sealion. Maybe more to come given the tie up of grab and BYD. 

[steveting99]

Looks like BYD's Sealion 7 got five stars in Euro NCAP safety tests here:

 

[As7eroidS]

@steveting99 damn solid results

[Rocky35]

TBF, if you look thru the EURO NCAP youtube channel, videos page: https://www.youtube.com/@EuroNCAP_forsafercars/videos , you will hardly find any recent car that did not get 5 stars.   

(Hyundai Santa Fe 2024, MG ZS Hybrid 2024, Renault 5 2024, Renault Captur 2024, Renault Symbioz 2024, Jeep Avenger 2024)

 

[Actan72]

On 3/2/2025 at 2:28 PM, steveting99 said:

The following youtube video from Bobby Ang is a how well the BYD Sealion 7 drives in Malaysia.

I was a bit shocked when Bobby compared the Sealion 7 to the premium conti vehicles like Audi, BMW, and mercedes Benz (aka ABB) and asked the tough question on what you're getting for the extra costs of a premium conti ICE vehicle? This is in terms of the Sealion's ride quality, handling, NVH, build quality, engineering, fit and finish, as well as the premium features on offer. Bobby says his Audi feels like a cheap car compared to the BYD Sealion 7!

If the Sealion 7 is challenging the premium conti vehicles, how are the B&B vehicles from the likes of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Kia going to compete against BYD? The Sealion 7 costs less than Toyota Harrier Hybrid or the RAV4 hybrid!

i test drove the sealion, it won't lose out to those contis for sure

 

[steveting99]

On 4/14/2025 at 1:52 PM, Actan72 said:

i test drove the sealion, it won't lose out to those contis for sure

 

@Actan72 good to see some push back on the review of the BYD Sealion 7. Do you know of any contis (make and model number) that's priced around $213k that can beat the Sealion 7? Can compare specs and features for review.

[Throttle2]

Have been seeing more and more on the road.

today i went out to newton for my tennis game and saw 2 on the road.  One black one grey.  Front and side looks nice.  Dont like the rear

[Actan72]

On 4/14/2025 at 9:21 PM, steveting99 said:

@Actan72 good to see some push back on the review of the BYD Sealion 7. Do you know of any contis (make and model number) that's priced around $213k that can beat the Sealion 7? Can compare specs and features for review.

at this price, i dun see any contis able to compare.

the only thing lose for me personally is this car is pure EV

I will be tempted if this is a hybrid