Byd Seal AWD

[music_cities]

I'm in Germany/Austria/Italy (Dolomites) driving the Byd Seal dual motor on a rental from Hertz. The car is great but not better than my 2022 GT PE MachE. The things I like better are the HUD, the higher range (more efficient I guess, since the battery is about the same size), and the ventilated seats are sure nice in the heat wave.

It's not as fun to drive as the MachE, even though it has a lot of acceleration. The adaptive cruise control and intelligent cruise control (lane keeping) are not as good as Ford's. It watches me and always tells me I look tired, and that I should stop for coffee. Ok, sure, I love coffee, but it's not a confidence booster to be told that one looks tired all the time! This has to be turned off on EACH DRIVE!. The "keep eyes on the road" nanny cam is also weird, you actually have to look literally at the road, you can't just be watching the cars that are driving on the road.

The frunk is useful. I haven't tried the back seats, but the front seats are all right, not as form-fitting as the MachE GT seats. It has a physical button to open the frunk! And, I found a menu item to precondition the battery! I haven't figured out whether the Tesla Superchargers are in the built-in navigation. CarPlay works ok.

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[GreaseMonkey]

Your thoughts confirm my bias that we make the Chinese appear better than they really are. I think we should be concerned, but not terrified that we throw the towel in round one. Are they capable of delivering a KO? Sure. But not in round one or two or three for that matter.

 

[music_cities]

I'm in Germany/Austria/Italy (Dolomites) driving the Byd Seal dual motor on a rental from Hertz. The car is great but not better than my 2022 GT PE MachE. The things I like better are the HUD, the higher range (more efficient I guess, since the battery is about the same size), and the ventilated seats are sure nice in the heat wave.

It's not as fun to drive as the MachE, even though it has a lot of acceleration. The adaptive cruise control and intelligent cruise control (lane keeping) are not as good as Ford's. It watches me and always tells me I look tired, and that I should stop for coffee. Ok, sure, I love coffee, but it's not a confidence booster to be told that one looks tired all the time! This has to be turned off on EACH DRIVE!. The "keep eyes on the road" nanny cam is also weird, you actually have to look literally at the road, you can't just be watching the cars that are driving on the road.

The frunk is useful. I haven't tried the back seats, but the front seats are all right, not as form-fitting as the MachE GT seats. It has a physical button to open the frunk! And, I found a menu item to precondition the battery! I haven't figured out whether the Tesla Superchargers are in the built-in navigation. CarPlay works ok.

The mountain roads in the Italian Dolomites are packed with Porsches, Lamborghinis, motorbikes, road bikes (cyclists), and everyone out to have a good time! It's crazy. It's all fun and games until we saw one accident between a motorcycle and a car, then things got a little more subdued.

A dual-motor EV with good regeneration is a dream in this terrain on these roads. One can't really drive *that* fast, so the total energy use is quite small. A lot of electricity is used to go up to the top of the pass, but then a good portion of it comes back into the car's battery going down the other side. The "one-pedal driving" (BYD doesn't call it that) is really nice to be able to speed up on the straights then slow down for the corners.

I'm still not really liking the Byd Seal, as compared to the 2022 MachE GT PE. It's a fine car, and the higher efficiency is nice, but its overall interior and exterior finishing quality is not as good. And there are odd tweaks in the UI that are more in-your-face than the annoying things about Sync.

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