For a machine that marks the arrival of a bold new player to the UK market, there’s something disarmingly unassuming about the BYD Atto 3. Given the huge ambition of the manufacturer that produces it, you might expect a big, splashy statement: instead, here’s a thoroughly decent family SUV that carries itself with a quiet confidence.
Never heard of BYD? Well, the Chinese firm was only founded in 1995 and is essentially a battery and technology manufacturer – and it has a wide reach. If you’ve got a smartphone or laptop, there’s a good chance BYD produced the batteries. Been on an electric bus lately? That could well be a BYD, too. And if you’ve still got a stack of face masks from the pandemic, BYD might well have made them.
Basically, BYD is a firm that prefers to grow quietly – but it always does so quickly. Twenty years ago, it branched out into car production, looking for avenues to apply its battery technology; last year, it sold nearly 1.9 million EV and plug-in hybrids. It’s an incredible success story, yet it’s one conducted without much fuss. And BYD seems to be taking that approach to entering the UK market. It might be arriving relatively quietly, but it is set on having 30 dealerships (yes, actual physical dealerships: no online-only 'agency model' for BYD) in the country by the end of this year, and around 100 by 2025.
In China, BYD offers a full range of cars spanning all segments of the market, but it will launch here with a single model – although the Atto 3 is a significant one. It’s already a huge seller in China, where it’s called the Yuan Plus. In Europe, it’s been rebranded and derives its name from an Attosecond (one quintillionth of a second, apparently).
The Atto 3 is the first BYD built on its e-Platform 3.0, a bespoke electric skateboard chassis that makes full use of the firm’s capabilities. So comprehensively vertically integrated is BYD that it produces its own batteries, motors, drivetrains and semiconductors, all of which are used for this model. That includes the firm’s distinctive lithium-iron-phosphate Blade Battery, which features cells mounted in thin strips directly to the pack, which, BYD says, allows for a much higher density than conventional battery packs.
In the form of the Atto 3, that bold new platform and technology have been used to produce a really quite conventional mid-sized SUV. It’s slightly bigger than a Kia Niro EV and slightly smaller than a Volkswagen ID 4. The exterior styling is pleasant, without really standing out: imagine a mash-up of a Honda CR-V and a Volkswagen ID 3.
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