BYD DOLPHIN SURF

Is this the £18,000 city car that will switch Europe's urbanites on to electric mobility? Don't bet against it

- KRIS CULMER

HOW WE TEST CARS

Autocar delivers several kinds of reviews on new cars, with different levels of technical and functional scrutiny. As the name suggests, our First Drives section typically addresses cars that we're driving for the first time - either in final production form or as late prototypes. Time in the car can be limited here, technical and equipment specification might not be finalised and some systems software may not be to production specification. For those reasons, First Drive reports don't have star ratings.

Once we have driven a car for a second time in the UK, in right-hand-drive form and typically at greater length, we will rate it, either as part of a shorter UK test report or as the subject of a full, instrumented Road Test.

In the latter case, we take empirical performance and refinement benchmarks from it at Horiba MIRA proving ground, as well as subjective limit handling impressions, plus key measurements of practicality, efficiency and kerb weight.

All UK tests and Road Tests receive proper verdicts with star ratings informed by everything we have learned and the combined impressions and experience of several testers. It was always expected that truly cheap cars would be the most difficult to electrify.

Some people even feared it might be impossible. Indeed, while 60% of E-segment cars sold in Europe at present are electrified, just 9% of A-segment cars are. But the new BYD Dolphin Surf is billed as the car to end that discrepancy - and given we're talking about the world’s leading maker of electrified vehicles, and prices are expected to start at only around £18k, there is a great amount of credibility to that claim.