Images of BYD’s rival to Cupra Born and Volkswagen ID.3 have emerged. Known as the Seal 06 GT it was previewed by the Ocean M concept earlier in the year.
The design is less radical than that of the Ocean M. It loses the aggressive splitters, side skirts and spoiler but retains the Alfa-esque telephone dial alloys.
The cabin borrows heavily from the Seal saloon, with a large central infotainment touchscreen. That controls most functions but physical buttons remain on the centre console for items like the window demisters.
The Seal 06 GT rides on tweaked e-Platform 3.0 architecture that underpins the Dolphin and Seal saloon. It draws power from a new generation of battery packs. Full specifications will be available soon when the car officially debuts on the Chinese market.
However, we expect the spec level to be similar to that of the revamped Seal saloon. That brought with it 800V electricals, and faster charging, though with a slight reduction in range.
The saloon will still do almost 650km between charges, according to Chinese data but that’s down from 700km. So you can expect around 500km on the WLTP test cycle.
The saloon comes as a single-motor rear-drive variant or a 390kW dual-motor set-up with all-wheel drive. If the Seal 06 GT uses the former set-up, it would rival electric hot hatches like Cupra Born VZ and VW ID 3 GTX. However, it is thought that output for that is limited to 160kW where rivals get 240kW.
MIIT filings in China revealed the top version of the Seal 06 GT has a 310kW output from two motors, and all-wheel drive.
Range figures are not yet to hand but the new model will utilise LFP battery technology, like the Seal saloon and BYD Atto 3.
It is not yet clear whether this is a global vehicle or it is for the domestic market only. We should know more by Spring.
