BYD Dolphin Review

One of the key features of the BYD Dolphin is its comfortable ride – both in terms of its primary ride quality on smooth roads, and its secondary ride quality when faced with bumps and potholes.

Because the Dolphin is compact, it also has relatively agile handling. Front-wheel drive means that wheelspin is always a possibility when accelerating from standstill, but the traction control system generally manages grip levels well.

Performance is perfectly sufficient, with a 0-62 mph acceleration time of 7.0 seconds. The Dolphin’s ride quality, performance and driving range means that it can cope easily with motorways, however there can be some road and wind noise at motorway speeds.

Changing gear in the Dolphin is interesting. There’s no gear selector between the front seats, or on the steering column. Instead there’s a row of rotating switches underneath the central touchscreen; the right-hand button is the gear selector. You twist the control one way for Drive, and the other way for Reverse (and there’s a button on the end for Park). This is an unusual design for a gear selector, but you actually get used to it fairly quickly.

The drive modes are also selected using one of these rotating controls; the options are Sport, Normal or Eco, and there’s a separate switch for snow and ice.

If you want to adjust the level of regenerative braking this can’t be done via the gear selector, and there are no steering column-mounted paddles. Instead you have to do this using the touchscreen, via a relatively lengthy process which involves pressing the vehicle button at the bottom right of the touchscreen, then selecting ‘New Energy’, then selecting regenerative braking, then selecting standard or high.

It's a similar story, involving lots of button-pressing on the touchscreen, to switch off the lane departure warning system and the speed warning system. The lane departure warning system can intervene in the steering quite sharply, and an American voice will tell you repeatedly if you exceed the speed limit.

The main features on the touchscreen home screen – which can be rotated between landscape and portrait formats – are three circles for Navigation, Spotify and DAB. At the bottom of the screen are some buttons for the climate controls. If you’re using Apple CarPlay, these climate controls disappear, leaving you with no way to adjust the heating and ventilation.

The BYD Dolphin is available in four trim levels: Active, Boost, Comfort and Design.

Active trim level features a 44.9 kWh battery, a 70 kW (95 PS) motor, and is priced at £26,195.

Boost trim level has a 44.9 kWh battery, a 130 kW (176 PS) motor, 17-inch wheels, multi-link rear suspension and is priced at £27,195.

Comfort trim level has a 60.4 kWh battery, a 150 kW (204 PS) motor, and is priced at £30,195.

Design trim level has a 60.4 kWh battery, a 150 kW (204 PS) motor, a panoramic roof, Vehicle to Load, rear privacy glass, wireless smartphone charging, and is priced at £31,695.

The Dolphin brings BYD battery technology to a small family hatchback, delivering a WLTP combined driving range of up to 265 miles. The Dolphin also offers comfortable ride quality, and better performance than the typical small family hatchback. Rear legroom is spacious, and the (dolphin-inspired) interior design is interesting. The lane departure warning system is very intrusive, and switching it off requires a lot of button-pressing on the touchscreen – and it’s the same story to switch off the person with an American accent warning about speed limits. It’s even a similar process to change the level of regenerative braking; the infotainment system would benefit from requiring less button-pressing to change basic vehicle settings.