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BYD Seal 08 debuts with Blade Battery 2.0: 1,000km range, 5-min charging, 684hp
- aurareturn 6mo ago$42,000 for 1,000KM of range and 684hp. That's just ridiculously a good deal.
- overflowy 6mo agoNot just a ridiculously good deal, but a good deal to Seal! (sorry, I couldn't help myself)
- zelos 6mo agoI've avoided Chinese EVs for political reasons, but it's getting harder. After the lease on my Kia EV6 ends in 6 months I can either upgrade to the new model with a whole 10% more range, or switch to one of the European brands which mostly have around half the charging speed. The Mercedes CLA seems to be the only model that's significantly better and not totally crazy money.
- a96 6mo agoYep. Even the previous Seal was a very tempting option. If only it wasn't a privacy game over. I've also eyed the CLA, but it seems over the top. Too bad KiaHyundai is mostly doing van sized things.
- swiftcoder 6mo agoGuessing the price is going to be 50% higher when it comes to market in the EU, and even so it'll still be half the price of it's only real competition in that range class
- nhinck2 6mo agoCan you just add power from the front and rear wheels like that?
- pjc50 6mo agoI don't see why not, it's all contributing to acceleration, although it's going to be rough on the tyres.
- swiftcoder 6mo agoAnd hey, even fairly modest EVs are rough on tyres, so no one is going to mind that tradeoff if they are looking for sporty acceleration
- cyberax 6mo agoI think the tyre problem is not really a thing. EVs use synchronized motors and traction control to avoid extra wear due to uneven torque during normal driving.
- mschild 6mo agoThe increased weight due to the battery is the bigger issue for wear on tires. A lot of EVs weigh a good 500kg more than their ICE counterparts.
- Ekaros 6mo agoI think bigger issue is torque. EVs have lot more torque and it is easier to use, so they can slip more often which then leads to wear.
- senordevnyc 6mo agoMy understanding is that the torque control speed is much faster though, so it's actually difficult to get the tires to slip. I can't screech my tires in my EV, but it'll do 0-60 ridiculously fast.
- Mashimo 6mo agoI can't remember if it was here or on reddit, but I read from a tyre shop / mechanic, that some EV users replace their tyres very often, because EV cars make it easy to drive very aggressive.
- lschueller 6mo agoMeanwhile in Germany: Let's stick to combustion engines for at least 10 more years with 500km range and a multiple of energy and maintenance costs...
- neya 6mo agoI thought EV's also have maintenance costs and energy costs?
- pjc50 6mo agoMuch less so than combustion engines, unless you're not able to charge at home.
- emil-lp 6mo agoBoth maintenance and charging are negligible costs.
- a96 6mo agoYes. Even with the ludicrous subsidies and support from governments, ICEs are a nightmare to feed and maintain. (And inefficient and massively polluting.)
- lpcvoid 6mo agoMy EV gets charged by energy made in Germany and EU, that's the difference.
- spwa4 6mo ago(0.33 to .35 euro per kwh, .4 on an old contract, double the price in France or US, and more than legendarily expensive Switzerland. Still way cheaper than the same range in gas btw)
- mschild 6mo agoIf charging at home. Bring in fast chargers or a lot of the commercial offerings into the mix and you're looking at .6 per kWh. Never mind the subscription/account bullshit a lot of companies are doing. Regardless of that, I would still only ever buy an EV when I get a new car.
- ranguna 6mo agoHow much will it cost in Europe and how did they manage to fit so much energy into their battery pack?
- pjc50 6mo agoLatter question: it's 92kWh, which is not unreasonable even if it's twice what some entry level cars are being sold with. Deep dive on the pack: https://www.batterydesign.net/byd-blade-2-0-compared-to-1-0/ https://www.batterydesign.net/byd-blade-2-0-compared-to-1-0/ ; it seems they've done some good old fashioned mechanical engineering to minimize the "not cells" part of the battery while keeping the liquid cooling effective. Cost in Europe: based on past cars .. maybe 50-100% more? Higher taxes AND higher margins. I can find the previous Seal at £46k for the premium spec version (390kW / 83kWh): https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/byd/seal/390kw-excellence-awd-83kwh-4dr-auto/0/ref/blk_ech6bameiky6364w https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/byd/seal/390kw-excellen... , or you can lease it for £321. UK leasing seems to be the last place it's possible to get an actual beat the market deal, which is odd.
- Markoff 6mo agoas usual double to triple the Chinese price for EVs
- himata4113 6mo agoThat's not a battery, that's a reusable bomb. Good thing they also figured out how to keep them from having runaway reactions.
- sigmoid10 6mo agoIt's just a 92kWh battery. There are many cars with 100kWh or more on the market already. And that's only a fraction of the energy stored in an average gas tank (upwards of 500kWh). A combustion car just loses most of that energy to heat from actual explosions. From a physics perspective, a normal car is a much bigger bomb than even the longest range EV.
- adrian_b 6mo agoBatteries are much less powerful bombs than fuel tanks, because they cannot produce a so great volume of gas. Batteries are dangerous mainly as sources of fire that is difficult to extinguish. For instance extinguishing with water may actually cause an explosion, by gas produced by the decomposition of water. Most lithium-based batteries are more dangerous than other batteries not because they are batteries, but because they use an organic electrolyte instead of a water-based electrolyte. So their electrolyte is a fuel, which may explode when the battery catches fire. However, there is much less electrolyte in a battery than fuel in a fuel tank, so the volume of expanding gas during an explosion is much less.
- kilroy123 6mo agoI believe Elon is taking SpaceX public because he knows that Tesla is cooked. The Chinese have already won. They're pumping out cars for $10,000, 1,000 km range, and at jaw-dropping scale. He knows Tesla is on borrowed time.
- pjc50 6mo agoTesla are in a strange place: people keep pointing out how decoupled the stock price is from the car business, and the stock refuses to go down. Partly because they're still selling the dream of full FSD. Chinese companies seem to be ignoring FSD and going straight for the full EV crown. Japanese companies are clinging to hybrids, which they do well, but are still dependent on petrol. America simply won't let the Chinese cars in and will continue to buy $100k gas guzzler trucks, because that's what the market demands.
- khriss 6mo ago> because that's what the market demands. Is that true though? People are currently forced to buy gas guzzlers since there are simply no practical and cheap EVs available in the United States. If Chinese EVs were allowed to be sold in the US, it's not a given that people would still prefer ICE cars. Indeed, the fact that they are banned suggests that the Govt knows that the domestic car industry can't compete with them.
- fragmede 6mo agoThe Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt (and Volt) and Fiat e500 don't exist in your narrative? People want their big SUVs, even Tesla sells one or two.
- aurareturn 6mo agoChinese companies seem to be ignoring FSD They're not. They already have robotaxis in many Chinese cities.
- londons_explore 6mo agoManufacturing was always going to be temporary in the USA. You just can't win at manufacturing cost sensitive goods when all your workers want to be highly paid. Should have gone the Apple route - design in the USA, make in China, and use a walled garden to ensure hardware clones aren't desirable and can't run any of your apps/features.
- askl 6mo agoNice to see innovation in the EV market. Meanwhile legacy EV maker Tesla continues doing nothing other than silly toy projects. (Or rather hyping up silly toy projects and actually doing nothing at all)
- swiftcoder 6mo agoI can't wait till they stuff the same battery in a down-market car. Would really like to see a >750km contender in the €30k range one of these days
- fernie 6mo agoAs a person that's been all electric since 2019, I've always been curious why everyone wants this. It's really rare for me to drive 700km in one day. What kind of commute do you have?
- swiftcoder 6mo agoIt's not really about driving 700km (although on a road trip that would be nice) - it's about not having to think twice about driving 200km when you forgot to plug the car in last night, and it's only at 60% charge. I have a Niro with an on-paper 460km range. If I don't habitually want to operate it outside of the 20-80% charge range, we're playing with about ~170km of range in the colder months. I live 50km from the city, so a roundtrip to a big box store costs >100km. That's not a margin where I get to not think about range.
- ZeroGravitas 6mo agoThere's a big Chinese auto show happening this week so there's a lot of announcements. The same site has an overview post: https://electrek.co/2026/04/26/beijing-auto-show-2026-insane-glimpse-future-auto-industry/ https://electrek.co/2026/04/26/beijing-auto-show-2026-insane... > In a single hall at the show, there were more EV models on display than there are available ones in the entire United States. There are 17 halls at this show. Seventeen. And they all have more EVs than the US market. > The show features 1,451 vehicles, including 181 world premieres and 71 concept cars, sprawling across a record-breaking 380,000 square meters of exhibition space at two venues. It’s now the largest auto show in the world — and it’s not even close.
- sigmoid10 6mo agoNo surprises here. China is already the biggest car market, both by production and units sold. And the gap is substantial. The US and EU automotive industries are getting left in the dust. A powerful industrial base and an authoritarian regime that is not completely in the dying fossil industry's pocket seem to be a winning combination this century. If anything stops them, it will be the long term consequences of the one child policy, which turbocharged the usual developed country population issues.
- metalman 6mo agoFlagship killer.
- khriss 6mo agoChina seems to be either leaving the US behind, or within striking distance in every single technology for the future. Looking back, I wonder if we will see this period as similar to what the 1957 Suez crisis did to the UK. Edit: Spelling
- librasteve 6mo agoyeah … this is my take - Trump has pushed me to get an EV next time, and BYD is already killing it in UK. Only hope for continued EU car industry is to get the UK back in the single market (haha).
- maxglute 6mo agoThe real news is BYD is making blade2, and flash charging (10m - 97%) standard going forward, i.e. all models all price points will recharge as fast as filling gas tank. The flash charging network supposedly also open to all compatible vehicles (probably some sort of titration on older batteries). Once blade2 proliferate, flash charging throughput = can convert many small lots, i.e. convenience stores into recharge stations like gas stations. I think flash charging infra basically just has a fuckload of old blade batteries drip charging from existing electric infra, so no need for major grid overhaul = the station in box charging infra almost anywhere (i.e. if grid supports heavy industrial AC, it can support flash cabinets) is going to be as big as charging time. E: @10m charge per car, the system basically is scaled to typical gas tank up transaction times, i.e. 10-12m per car. The battery storage sized to survive rush hour throughput then charge off grid or roof solar during lull. Basically parity with gas infra. The plan is also to second life old batteries, i.e. 60-70% capacity blade1s... lots of 1st gen bats retiring, storage is going to be essentially "free" via upcycling. AKA entire battery circular economy PRC mandated recently. The last part is what makes BYD so cracked, IIRC central gov legislated extended producer responsibility recently, i.e. BYD (largest battery producer) legally had to take back and recycle batteries - cradle to grave responsibility, instead of billions in logistics for storing/recycling/shredding they're just slapping them in flash stations to increase deprecation cycle.
- close04 6mo agoFlash charging is 1MW - 1000V, 1000A. That peak power has to be provided by the grid or some energy storage that can be replenished in time for the next cars. We need cheap and smallish batteries (because burying is not always an option) to be able to install that much storage and peak power output in the MW/MWh range all over the place. We'll eventually have this but we might be talking in decades rather than years. Or, why not, maybe we need fewer cars.
- danielsamuels 6mo ago1MW/800V architecture = 1250A
- cjs_ac 6mo agoThe 400 km in 5 minutes figure relies on finding a charger that can consistently deliver 1 MW; a prominent UK YouTuber just reported being unable to find a public charger that can consistently exceed 100 kW in all the years he's been testing electric cars. As much as I think that electric cars are the future - and my next car will be one - there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be put in place and improved before they can reach their advertised potential, just as there was for petroleum-powered cars.
- xdex 6mo agoI don’t doubt that’s true in the UK and Europe but this is a Chinese company at a Chinese car expo so I’d imagine that these chargers are popping up all over China. Maybe one day the rest of the world will catch up?
- cjs_ac 6mo agoExporting their cars to Europe, Australia and New Zealand is a big part of BYD's business model; charging availability in those markets is not a fringe issue for them. There are more than fifty EV marques competing for market share in China, and as per recent FT reporting, the Chinese government continues to subsidise the formation of new EV manufacturers. These companies have no option other than to be export-led businesses.
- ZeroGravitas 6mo agoThe word "consistently" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and most of the limiting will be on the car side for average cars and average chargers. e.g. a Hyundai Ioniq 5 might charge at above 200kW up to around 45% peaking around 260kW on a 300kW charger then taper down to about 50kW at 80% full. But that's a relatively good car for charging, many others won't push the older, lower spec chargers that are only advertising 100-150kW to their max (which might actually be from a low of 90 to a high of 175 on the charger side). Some chargers display whether the car or the charger is limiting the rate as people often inaccurately blame the charger. This new BYD car, on a standard high speed charger is likely to flatline the existing 350kW chargers up to near 80% in a similar way to how the Ioniq does that on older 150kW chargers.