BYD Seal

Can this electric saloon swim with its Tesla Model 3 rival, or is it destined to sink without trace? On sale Now Price from £44,990

- Dan Jones

WHILE BYD IS a relative newcomer in the UK, the brand has quickly enjoyed success in Europe with the Atto 3 electric SUV and Dolphin small car. To keep that momentum going, BYD is now gunning for Tesla Model 3 buyers with this new flagship model, the Seal. That seems like a tall order for a newcomer, especially when you consider that many established brands have already fallen short.

Still, when it comes to sating Tesla fans' appetite for performance, the Seal is anything but all mouth and no flippers. Of its two sub-species, the dominant one is the 523bhp, four-wheel-drive Excellence-AWD; put your foot down and it takes off with vigour, accelerating from 0-62mph in just 3.8sec. That beats every Model 3 except the Performance version, and even then the Seal isn't far behind.

That kind of power is always nice to have, but we suspect the entry-level Design, with its 308bhp motor and rear-wheel drive, will be fast enough for most. That'll still go from 0-62mph in 5.9sec - right up there with the equivalent Model 3 and BMW i4 eDrive35. You certainly won't struggle to overtake slow-moving traffic, and getting up to motorway speeds is effortless.