BYD Dolphin Surf may be the cheapest in Europe

As we drive around Danish country roads, you can think for a while about what a European car is. French brands have placed great emphasis on ensuring that their new electric cars are built domestically with French battery packs. Can it become more European? But then BID? The brand may be Chinese, but a BYD factory in Szeged, Hungary will soon open and be ready to produce Dolphin Surf cars. By doing so, BYD avoids both punitive tariffs and costly transport from China to Europe and shows that it is serious about its European investments.

At home in China, the model is called the Seagull and has already managed to become one of the best-selling electric cars in the country, probably mainly because it is dirt cheap there. But maybe also because it has many positive properties.

The comparison with the cheap ë-C3 is unavoidable, and then the Dolphin Surf appears as a more complex and less expensive car to build. Sure, there’s a lot of cheap hard plastic materials in the interior, but it’s no worse than the Citroën. If, like the undersigned, you have a little difficulty with BYD’s interior design, you’ll be happy to know that the Dolphin Surf has a more understated interior. The shapes are not that strange and there are no guitar strings for the passengers to play with.

A few things can be felt Again, the touchscreen rotates from landscape to portrait orientation, and the screen in front of the steering wheel is crammed with information conveyed by ant-sized text scattered across the screen. It is also typical for BYD that the system that monitors the driver’s attention is overloaded and does not allow you to look at any of the screens for more than a second.

In the middle of the steering wheel there is a large shiny plate with the BYD emblem in which you are reflected. Is it annoying when you think about it that there’s a bearded man watching me while I’m driving?

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Equally annoying is the gear selector, which consists of a rotary knob on the far left in a row of identical knobs that control various functions, including climate control. The quality of the plastic is inferior and you don’t get any feedback as to whether the selection of a gear was successful or not. The P position is reached with the thumb on the left side of the knob.

You sit surprisingly Good. It’s narrow of course, the Dolphin Surf is a narrow car and if you’re tall you can press your knees against the door on one side and the center console on the other. The seating position is high and slightly tilted forward, giving you the feeling of looking out onto the road. The comfort is at least decent, and in the highest equipment level, Comfort, both the driver and front passenger seats are electrically adjustable.

The brake pedal has a strange design, which means you mostly step on the arm holding the pedal. It may be due to the foot and shoe size, but it makes braking a bit uncomfortable and the feeling in the pedal is diffuse and difficult to regulate. What’s even nicer is that the turning circle is really tight and you can turn in places you wouldn’t think.

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The test vehicle has the highest equipment level, Comfort, and this also includes a battery with 43.2 kilowatt hours and an electric motor that delivers 156 hp to the front wheels. The mid-level Boost has the same battery and motor, while the entry-level Active has just 30 kWh and 88 hp.

If you want adaptive cruise control, a wireless phone charger and LED headlights, you’ll have to upgrade to the Comfort level, but otherwise there’s not much missing in terms of equipment. Even the standard car has Android Auto and Apple Carplay, V2L technology and a charging socket in the dashboard that provides a whopping 60 watts of charging power, enough to charge a computer.

Automatic air conditioning Strangely, it’s not even available as an option and is the most missing piece of equipment. The keyless system and digital key in the cell phone, on the other hand, are standard and are light years more modern than the Citroën, which has a mechanical key start.

The Dolphin Surf is a short, tall and narrow car that can be seen in the back seat. The high sideline makes the back seat a dark place and even if you have decent legroom, the roof height is too low and the width is far too narrow. Like the Hyundai Inster, the back seat only has two seats, but it’s much more comfortable to sit there.

The luggage compartment is quite spacious and has a small additional space under the floor to store the charging cable. It would have been even better if there was a storage space under the front hood, there is definitely space there, but BYD has not provided any storage space.

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0-100km/h in 9.1 seconds isn’t very quick, but behind the wheel the Dolphin Surf feels livelier. However, the step back to the 88 hp of the entry-level model is quite difficult and with a specified WLTP range of only 22 miles, it is uncertain whether this version will even be sold in our latitudes. Cars with Boost and Comfort equipment, on the other hand, achieve a range of 31-32 miles, putting them on par with the competition.

For Swedish customers If you dare to attack a Dolphin Surf, the price is crucial. There is nothing like this in Sweden – officially. But DN was included in the tax office’s benefit calculation for company cars, where BYD submitted prices: the entry-level model Surf Active costs SEK 259,000 there

The basic version of the Dolphin Surf is a significant cent cheaper than its nearest competitors Citroën ë-C3, Hyundai Inster and Fiat Grande Panda and is likely to be a successful model. Dolphin Surf is more sophisticated and competent than first impressions and the offer is spiced up with a six-year new car warranty. According to the tax authority, prices for the models with the larger battery are SEK 304,900 for Surf Boost and SEK 329,900 for Surf Comfort.

The Chinese dolphin surfer is not as small and innocent as one might think, it may even be that Dolphin Surf becomes the Trojan horse that seriously breaks the door to Europe.

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