BYD has arrived in Spain. He has done it with three electric cars that, each in their own way, look spectacular. The Chinese firm assures that it wants open hole in the electric car market and has begun with the launch of its premium models: two SUVs (one compact and the other a seven-seater) and a huge saloon.
And although the most striking of the BYD offer are the Tang SUV (large SUV) and the Han SUV (electric sedan), the company has made its first commitment to the BYD Atto 3, a compact SUV with which they aspire to make yourself known to the general public.
BYD Atto 3 technical sheet
ATto WORLD 3
BODY TYPE.
five-seater SUV
MEASURES AND WEIGHT.
4,455 meters long, 1,875 meters wide, 1,615 meters high and 2,720 meters of wheelbase. 2,160 kg of weight.
TRUNK.
440 liters.
MAXIMUM POWER.
150 kW (204 CV)
WLTP CONSUMPTION.
15.6kWh/100km. 420 kilometers of autonomy.
ENVIRONMENTAL DISTINCTIVE.
.Zero emissions
DRIVING AID (ADAS).
Adaptive cruise control with emergency braking, lane keeping, lane change assistance, blind spot sensor, rear cross traffic alert, signal recognition, rear camera and 360º projection.
others.
Rotating central screen of 12.8 or 15.6 inches. Own software with Spotify application included, USB C and A sockets, micro SD card socket, wireless charging of the mobile phone. Compatibility with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
ELECTRIC HYBRID.
No.
PLUG-IN HYBRID.
No.
ELECTRIC.
Yes. 150 kW (204 hp) front engine and 60.48 kWh capacity battery.
price and release
Now available from 41,200 euros.
a smart decision
Facing the arrival in Spain with the BYD Atto 3 as a flag seems, without a doubt, the most intelligent decision of the Chinese company. As we commented at the end of our article in which we discussed the firm’s arrival in our country (linked above), BYD has the challenge of to convince to those who spend 70,000 euros on a car that their product is better than German premium vehicles.
This is more complicated if they don’t manage to make a name for themselves before. To achieve this, his weapon is the BYD Atto 3, a compact SUV that will fight in probably the hottest electric car segment right now. If they manage to seat potential customers in their cars, they have a lot of cattle.
And it is that the BYD Atto 3 boasts of equipment and technology. The differences between the Comfort finish and the Design are minimal. They are summarized in four points:
The Design features two-way charging The Design features music-reactive ambient lighting on the door handles. The Design has an air purification system The central screen of the Design is 15.6 inches, instead of the standard (Comfort) 12.8 inches.
For the rest, the standard equipment could be called “mandatory” because there are no optionals available. Of course, what is included is absolutely overwhelming. Those who opt for either of the two options will have adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, signal recognition, detection of vehicles in the blind spot, emergency braking, cross-traffic control, lane change assistant, rear camera. , vehicle alert when we open the door, heat pump… among others.
With this technological load, the 41,200 euros for its Comfort version and the 42,900 euros do not seem so much, especially if we take into account that a Kia e-Niro costs 49,965 euros if we match it in equipment. And that a Mercedes EQA starts from 53,870 euros or that a Volvo XC40 Recharge does the same from 48,275 euros. Of course, the Swede already matches equipment for that price and any of the above have slightly higher batteries.
No, the BYD Act 3 not a cheap car and from the company they have emphasized that they do not follow the strategy of “dropping prices” as some might expect from a Chinese manufacturer. But, although they do not focus on this section, as the MG4 Electric does, it is true that they offer more for less money than their technologically speaking rivals.
sit down to convince
When we have talked about BYD, we have commented on the importance for the company that the customer sits in the car. If anyone is looking for an electric vehicle of this size, it may be pleasantly surprised with inside.
The qualities of the vast majority of the materials in this BYD Atto 3 is very good. While the door handles could have been better finished or at least used better plastics, the soft surfaces are scattered throughout the cabin and it all has a fairly high quality feel. The finials are well finished and everything fits well.
Helping to underpin these feelings is that the front seats are electrically adjustable, comfortable and heated. To this must be added that the design It has been one of the most careful aspects of the interior of the car. It has curious details, such as rubber bands that retain objects in the door openings or that its handle is replaced by an object that slides with the play of our wrist. For the rest, it is very spacious, the rear seats are comfortable and the knees are not too high, as in other electric cars.
In the field of infotainment, the dashboard is a very small screen on which information related to driving is displayed. It is a configuration very similar to the one used by Volkswagen. In it, the data displayed hardly changes and, in this case, a larger screen is missed to locate everything at a glance.
By contrast, the center screen is huge. gigantic. Perhaps even excessive. Their 15.6 inches they house a very polished software that follows the logic of mobile phones. It is very easy to find any function. The screen can be split with some applications and even resize any of its sides, add Spotify as standard and, above all, the quality is very high.
Interior with the 15.6-inch screen in landscape format.
The resolution is really good and, probably, the best thing I can say about the system is that I have not missed Apple CarPlay or Android Auto in this first (and short) journey that we have been able to do with the car. And, to the greatest surprise, the screen rotates. It can be positioned in a vertical format but, yes, the size is so large that it covers a bit of vision. At least in my case, I measure 1.68 meters. This shouldn’t be a problem with the small screen.
Finally, his behavior. We can say little in this section, since the journey was short and without passing through the highway, so we could not get a clear idea of consumption either. We can say that, in our unit, the mean of consumption It was about 17 kWh/100 km, which would lead to having around 330 real kilometers of autonomy. We are left with the question of knowing how limiting its battery is (60.48 kW) and consumption at higher speeds.
Interior with the 15.6-inch screen in vertical format.
From the behavior we can say that it is a car that has been designed to, above all, be used in an urban environment. The steering is very soft and the same feeling can be replicated on the pedals. The tuning of the suspension has also fled from a certain harshness to the extreme. Of course, its response is so agile that it moves freely when we maneuver in an urban environment or in a parking lot.
Similarly, we were also unable to verify the effectiveness of its adaptive cruise control and other driving aids. We drove on secondary roads without lanes (although in two directions) and the vehicle read the outer limits of the road very well, taking part in the steering wheel with some determination (although without abruptness) when it understood that we could get off the road.
For now, it has been a small but interesting contact, but it has helped us to verify that BYD’s commitment to the Spanish market is ambitious and that the Atto 3 has sufficient reasons to wage war in its segment.
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Photos | xataka
