Sealion 7 Review: BYD's Predator Is Ready To Attack

You all know BYD by now. What you don’t know about is the Sealion 7. A weird name right? The Sealion 7 is BYD’s second car from the Ocean Series, the second in India after the Seal. After making its debut at the 2025 Auto Expo we finally got our hands on the BYD Sealion 7, its most premium offering in India yet. And it’s an SUV, so the aim is to sell more units. 

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Design

The Sealion 7 is based on BYD’s Ocean Series so yes, there are similarities with the other car in that series, the Seal.

Both models share very similar headlamp and taillamp designs. Since this is a stylish SUV, it gets a lot of body cladding to emphasise that. As standard, you get 19-inch alloy wheels and you get 20 inchers on the top-spec variant that you see here. The rising window line gives it nice haunches over the rear wheels and along with the tapered roofline and the small little boot lid, the rear three-fourth is probably the best angle for the Sealion 7.

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Tech and Interior

There are lots of these flowing lines all across the dashboard, and that’s on purpose. Ocean Series you see.

There are two grab handles to close the door. One is this conventional one next to the window switches and the other is this flamboyant handle near the window. The second one isn’t really designed to be a grab handle but it’s just so much more convenient to grab. But that’s not the most interesting part, to open the door, you pull up on the stylish lever near that flamboyant handle. It makes the car feel really premium.

The large 15.6-inch touchscreen that rotates continues to be part of this car. You can rotate it by pressing the button on the screen but there’s no button on the steering wheel. Speaking of which this one is new and it isn’t like any we’ve seen on other BYD models in India. This feels really premium in the hand and the buttons aren’t really that hard to reach.

Now the front is clearly well equipped, but do the passengers get the same level of comfort?

The rear seat is quite comfortable too. You can, of course, recline it for further and get more comfortable. You can see the 2,930 mm coming into action because after setting the driver’s seat to my position – I’m 5’11” – there’s loads of knee room. Despite the sloping roofline, there is a decent amount of headroom too. Adding to the sense of space is that panoramic glass roof. Now in terms of features, you have two phone holders on the back of either seat along with a larger storage space for bigger items. You also get two rear AC vents and the rear charging ports are hidden away nicely inside a fold-out tray that can be tucked back into the centre console. It also has a drop-down armrest with two pop-out cupholders and a very small storage space.

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Safety

BYD has never skimmed on safety features in India and so the Sealion 7 is no different. It gets seatbelt reminders for all seats, ISOFIX child seat mounts, traction control, hill hold and even ADAS with 17 features. But interestingly, the Sealion 7 gets 11 airbags! That’s right, 11! All of these are standard. That’s more than what its competition has to offer. While there are no Global NCAP or Bharat NCAP results yet, anything but a good score is out of the question. 

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Performance

Unlike the Seal, the Sealion 7 gets only one battery pack, and it shares it with the Seal. So it gets an 82.56 kWh BYD Blade unit with a range of up to 567 km on a full charge. And this SUV is available with either a single-motor RWD setup or a dual-motor AWD setup. And it’s the latter that we’ve got our hands on. Do you know what that 4.5 S badge on the tailgate signifies?

Well that number says how fast the Sealion 7 can accelerate from 0-100 kmph. Put the pedal to the metal and you are pushed back into your seat, it is a fun EV to drive. There are only two regen modes – Standard and High. And it's in High that you feel some sort of regen and deceleration from say 50 to 12 kmph feels very slow.  You won't come to a halt as you would expect to. And BYD should have worked on the rear visibility because I can hardly see anything and that's unnerving. For me having a complete view of things around me is important and that small rear windscreen hampers visibility big time.

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Ride and Handling

The ride is supple too. It is a heavy car, more than 2.3 tonnes but the way it handles bumps is great. There is some thumping sound on potholes but it just wafts along on undulations. There's, obviously, some body roll but it’s not as noticeable unless you make extreme maneuvers.

But then what about the noise, harshness and vibration levels in the Sealion 7? As you’d expect in an EV you barely hear any noise when you’re driving around. Of course, there is road noise coming in from the tyres because there is no engine noise to mask that out. But apart from that, there are no ambient noises from the environment coming into the cabin because it’s been insulated pretty well. Overall it’s a very nice, calming, soothing experience driving the Sealion 7.

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Price and Variants

There are two variants of the Sealion 7 you can buy – Premium and Performance. Both get the same battery and in terms of features, there’s literally no difference between the two. So the only difference is the powertrain. The Premium with its single-motor RWD setup has a range of 567 km, and the Performance with its dual-motor AWD setup has a slightly lower range of 542 km. So the Premium is priced at ₹48.90 lakh and the Performance costs ₹6 lakh more. For that delta, it makes more sense to get the Performance variant for that extra performance without sacrificing too much on the range, no?

BYD Sealion 7 Review: Verdict

For what it offers, the Sealion 7 is a great car. It looks good, has a lot of features, promises to be a safe car and has a decent amount of range. And BYD has priced it aggressively. BMW’s doozy of pricing with the iX1 long wheelbase now has serious competition. But the Sealion 7 has more to offer in terms of space and range. So BYD or BMW, which B-brand will you go for? The iX1 L is much cheaper than the rest, barring the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and that sets a new benchmark in the segment. Kia is yet to announce the prices of the new EV6 and the EX40 is the most expensive right now. BYD then has one clear target in the market right now – the BMW iX1 L. Now it’s a game of wait and watch to see if this BYD is serious competition to the BMW.

Photography: Prashant Chaudhary