Louth Motors: How long with the new BYD ATTO3 remain unknown

The landscape of Irish car parks and drive-ins is changing. We are not seeing the letter D on many cars as we move back to petrol or joining those using volts and amps or any other petrol/electro combo. In addition to this we are seeing new names, primarily from China, with their electric offerings.

MG has made a strong comeback here with its Chinese owners tempting us with low entry price electric cars.

Ora too with the Funky Cat and now BYD offering the Atto3. BYD proudly claim to be the biggest car company you’ve never heard of and the facts are that they recently overtook Tesla as the largest maker of electric cars in the world.

The Atto3 is their first offering here in Ireland to be followed very soon by two other models the Dolphin and Seal. As I said before once we all managed Qashqai, are names really that important?

When you think Atto3 think Hyundai Tucson as it is more or less the same dimensions.

So, they are going for the best-selling car in the best-selling segment by offering an electric SUV.

To confuse you even more, the car looks not unlike something we have seen from Hyundai in the past or could see in the future.

There are other styling influences to be seen and I see bits of Ford and Mercedes as well and has, you’ve guessed, a full width light bar at the back.

The look isn’t revolutionary which is always a good ploy when entering a market. You don’t want to create partisan prospective buyers now do you?

I always get asked by those less familiar with cars what is it?

I’d figure that out in seconds by looking at the badge on the car but in the same way people post on social media what time does the dry cleaners open at rather than spending less time querying Google/Bing, they never look for themselves. And that’s to BYD’s advantage.

New car makers are hitting the spot for buyers so well that the first mover angst seems less and less and people here in Ireland at least are incredibly open to embracing the latest brands.

We don’t have any national loyalty to stop us just the need for a good car that’s dependable, affordable and cheap to run/maintain.

BYD have certainly ticked that affordable box with the cost of the top of the range Design model bottoming out at €38,964 after the moveable feast that are SEAI grants are factored in.

That should capture your attention because the car is filled to the gills with features that cost a lot more as extras from other brands.

Inside is where BYD have made the most attempt to be different and I can say they have succeeded.

It is reassuring to see difference in a car even if it isn’t 100% successful.

For instance, there is a 15.6 inch infotainment screen that rotates between portrait and landscape and is electric. I’ve never seen it before and never knew I needed this feature and it turns out you don’t. You just need the landscape setting.

The door pockets are another quirk. They use 3 electric bungee cords to secure your stuff and they work to a degree, but I can just see the field day young kids will have with these making music and annoying the parents.

My favourite idiosyncrasy is the door releases. The confused look on passenger’s faces when they try to get out is reason enough to buy the car.

The release is enormously visible but certainly not intuitive. The aircraft style drive selection control is OK and again different, but it took me a while to find P being quite invisible.

Apart from these conversation pieces the inside is well laid out, the seats are supportive and the cabin is airy with lots of headroom.

It could be the offering of many familiar brands which is what BYD were aiming for, so job well done.

On the road the car is quiet. How come some cars are so quiet and some produce more noise than desired.

Is this not day one lesson in car design class? I know not everyone likes a silent car but when car companies went all out to tempt us, quietness in the likes of Rolls Royce, Bentley and Mercedes was seen as the main selling point. To my mind there should be no excuse for a noisy cabin in a car.

The performance of the car is quite strong too and for this type of car at this price with a petrol engine, you’d trounce it in a drag race. The numbers for the ATTO3 is 0-100km/h in 7.3s.

Electric motors are really quite powerful and I’m not ashamed to admit I like them a lot.

Where the BYD blurs the connection with performance is with its handling. Its fine going straight but when too much exuberance is used, and the car is going left or right, it can produce understeer and/or the electronic traction systems make their presence known a bit too roughly.

For everyday normal driving and watching the battery level this won’t be a problem though.

There are three drive modes but it was nearly impossible to feel any difference between them and the same can be said with the regenerative settings.

The battery is sized at 60kWh and my consumption average was 16.1kW/100km giving a projected range of 372kms – BYD claim 420kms – which is good and I reckon regularly achievable remembering that a ~400km range being the sweet spot to incorporate an EV into your life.

It took me 14mins to get from 32% to 81% charge using a 150kW charger.

The boot at 555l is quite large and useable.

The Irish government have a dream to have us all driving electric cars by 2030. The BYD (stands for Build Your Dream – you won’t be making this cheesy boast at the golf club) will, I am sure, play its part in that “collective” dream.

With so many new car brands reaching our shores I wonder who else with be participating?

Since their arrival in April this year BYD are already outselling the likes of Jaguar, Jeep, Subaru and Alfa Romeo.

The unknown BYD brand will, I predict, lose that unknown moniker very soon with affordable, stylish, feature filled cars like this.