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Driving Experience

With just 94 horsepower, the Dolphin was never going to be a very fast car. The electric motor’s responsiveness does deliver on the signature EV feel however, with the car accelerating briskly from standing starts while other lesser, petrol-powered small hatchbacks are still revving their engines.

It’s a comfort-tuned car through and through, with none of the dynamism that rival EVs like the MG4 exhibit. The car comes fitted with Chinese-manufactured, Linglong tyres with low rolling resistance straight from the factory. Comical name aside, it’s a decently quiet tyre in a car that the only other noise you will hear when rolling along is the wind. As an appliance car for drivers that don’t really want to bother with driving excitement the Dolphin suits just fine as it moves as efficiently and quietly as you would expect a little electric car to.  

However, driving enthusiasts that hop into one may find that there’s a certain vagueness to the steering within the first five degrees of steering lock. Then the car seems to exhibit a slightly disconcerting yaw angle when you turn in on the steering wheel. It tracks decently, but there’s a slightly odd sensation of the nose of the car alway pointed slightly to the outside of a corner. 

There are much more powerful versions of the Dolphin with power outputs of up to 201 horsepower in other countries, but one wonders how they will handle dynamically.

The bottom line is, the car in Singaporean specification is comfortable to drive, but completely unexciting. The good news is that it’s fully equipped with all the niceties you expect from a modern EV, including a full active safety suite that includes lane departure warning, front collision warning, and adaptive cruise control. Yet, we had to live with the slight annoyance of the car’s over-policing of speed limits. The GPS-based system attempts to warn you with a soft “bing bing” chime every time the car creeps over the rated speed limit, and on many urban streets it seems to default to a 50km/h limit warning. The good news is that it stops after a few seconds even if you are above the perceived ‘speed limit’. It’s all software based and so can be deactivated, but we couldn’t find the option so lived with it.  

Power efficiency is a mixed bag in a good way. The car’s official specification rates it as having a range of 340km based on the WLTP cycle, but based on the Singapore Land Transport Authority’s homologation figures of battery capacity and power efficiency of 15.2kWh/100km, the total range is only 295km.

The really good news is that in real-world, Singaporean driving conditions, a power efficiency of around 11.5kWh/100km is completely within reach, which, in our driving experience, gives nearly 400km of range before needing a top-up. That’s further than the Opel Mokka-e and its cousin the Peugeot e-2008. 

Conclusion

It’s a competent small car for families looking for a decently affordable EV, and its seemingly low power output isn’t really a bad thing when you consider the fact that EV road taxes are calculated based on the car’s power. It certainly doesn’t feel slow, and drives with a solid, stable feel on the highway too.

Cars are expensive right now, whichever way you look at it. But with the BYD Dolphin, the dealership Vantage Automotive is doing its best to deliver as much as possible within the constraints.  

BYD Dolphin

*According to battery capacity and LTA homologated efficiency figures

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