BYD Sea Lion 07 arrives in China

After its premiere at the Guangzhou Motor Show in China last fall, the all-electric BYD Sea Lion 07 has officially hit production in the country. It is already available in four RWD and AWD variants priced from 189,800 to 239,800 Yuan (U.S. $26,300–33,200).

The entry-level trim is called 550 Standard and packs a motor good for 231 PS (228 hp / 170 kW) and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque. A 71.8-kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery gives it 550 km (342 miles) of CLTC-rated range. The standard sprint succeeds in 7.3 seconds.

The two middle-ground specs are called 610 Long Range and 610 Smart. Both deliver 313 PS (309 hp / 230 kW) and 380 Nm (280 lb-ft) of torque and up to 80.64 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The sprint time goes down to 6.7 seconds, and the bigger battery size yields up to 610 km (379 miles) of range.

Topping the lineup is the 550 4WD Smart, which uses two motors to hit the wheels with a combined 530 PS (523 hp / 390 kW), as well as 690 Nm (509 lb-ft) of torque. It concludes the sprint in 4.2 seconds and gets 550 km (342 miles) out of the only battery pack it is bundled with.

Regardless of your chosen powertrain, all BYD Sea Lion 07 SUVs can be recharged from 10 to 80 percent in just 25 minutes. Squeezing the rest of the current into the pack (i.e., from 80 to 100 percent) is also much faster now at just 18 minutes. The outdated EV architecture used by BYD necessitated at least 30 minutes to complete the charge from 80 percent, but this is officially a thing of the past.