BYD Atto 3 review: Enter the dragon face

LET’S see how many times I can write an electric-car review without mentioning Tesla. That first time doesn’t count, but this will be hard because Elon Musk has managed to define for the car-buying public what an electric car should be, just as Steve Jobs’ legacy to the world is a generation of people who would rather spend time on TikTok than in the company of other humans.

Yet, while auto companies are falling over themselves to catch the world’s leading electric-car maker, here’s one that isn’t ostensibly out to destroy Tesla (oops, that’s 1). In fact, there are reports that it already supplies batteries to you-know-who’s Gigafactory in Berlin.

Meet BYD, a Chinese battery maker turned electric vehicle (EV), software, solar panel and face-mask giant. Its newest car for Singapore, the Atto 3, is a sport utility vehicle (SUV) with a motor for the front wheels and a bank of lithium-ion batteries under the floor.

As luck or product planning would have it, it’s roughly the size of the Toyota RAV4, the world’s best-selling SUV. The significant thing is that it costs less than its Japanese rival (here, at least) meaning it busts through a key barrier to EV adoption.

The Atto 3 should easily cover 420 km on a single charge in real world conditions, and you can add a week’s worth of typical driving to the range in about an hour at a direct current (DC) charger. At a public charging point, each full top-up costs S$30, give or take.

If you want to telegraph the fact that you’ve turned your back on Big Oil, the BYD at least helps you look the part. Anyone can intuit that it’s an electric car because it has the smooth, clean nose of one, whereas many combustion machines have front grilles the size of bungalow gates. The coquettishly slim front lamps apparently create the impression of a dragon face, which makes this the first car in the world inspired by its designer’s mother-in-law.

Simply because it’s Chinese, you might have turned your nose up at the Atto 3. Doing so would be both understandable and wrong-headed. While the brand’s early efforts were laughably slow, badly built and boat-like to drive, the Atto 3 feels like something from a different planet altogether.

As a car, it’s not merely passable, but good. For a start, it gets the basics right, with a roomy cabin as well as fit and finish that passes muster. It’ll never be mistaken for a luxury car, but apart from the odd bit of hard plastic, the Atto 3 doesn’t feel like something aimed at peasants.

Instead, the interior is admirably quirky. The air-con vents resemble a barbell’s plates, while the dashboard ripples with what look like muscle fibres (possibly another nod to the designer’s mother-in-law). Other playful touches: The drive selector is like a plane’s thrust lever, while the door pockets are made up of stretchy cords that you can twang like guitar strings. Everyone seems to love the rotary door handles, but what really draws the oohs and aahs is the 12.8-inch (32.5 cm) infotainment screen that rotates between portrait and landscape positions at the touch of a button.

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The screen itself works beautifully, with lag-free graphics and a menu system much like a phone’s, meaning it takes time to acquaint yourself with where all the apps live, but things go smoothly once you do. There’s no companion app to pair the Atto 3 with yet, but the car does have appealing features, such as a built-in drive recorder and a panoramic glass roof. It’s also clever enough to do things like turn down the air-con blower to quieten things when your phone rings.

A near-field communication, or NFC, sensor lets you gain entry and start the car with a card that works through your wallet, or if you use an actual key, there’s a button that lets you boot up the Atto 3 from a distance so you can get some cold air going before you climb aboard.

Smart features aside, the big selling point here is that the BYD runs on batteries. Predictably, that makes it quiet, smooth and responsive. It doesn’t rocket away from the lights like some EVs do, but once you’re rolling, the Atto 3 does pick up speed with ease, whirring quietly into action in a way that makes a combustion car feel lazy in comparison.

While it feels too weighty to be a nimble car, the BYD does at least feel securely planted, and the turning circle is small enough for it to pull off tight U-turns. More to the point, it rides decently over bumps, and the quietness makes it a welcome haven from the stress of everyday traffic. All in all, the Atto 3 offers a pleasant enough introduction to electric power to make it plain that combustion is history.

Many EVs do just that, but few do it at this price. And while a Tesla (oops, that’s 2) typically has the muscle to blow a BMW into the weeds, the Atto 3’s true power is its potential to alter perceptions, about EVs in general and Chinese EVs more specifically. In other words, if Elon Musk changed the game, cars like the Atto 3 could change minds. So much so that not long from now, it might become a challenge to see if I can write an electric-car review without mentioning BYD.

BYD Atto 3

Motor power / Torque 201 hp / 310 Nm

Battery type / Capacity Lithium-ion, 60.5 kWh

Standard charge time / Type 9.5 hours / 6.5kW AC charging

Fast charge time / Type 42 minutes / 50kW DC from 20-80 per cent

Range 480 km

0-100km/h 7.3 seconds

Top speed 160 km/h

Efficiency 14.9 kWh/100 km

Agent Vantage Automotive

Price S$178,888 with COE

Available Now