Yahoo Autos BYD Atto 3 2024 long-term test
Why we ran it: To find out if this quirky newcomer is a serious prospect or a flash in the pan
Final report - Month 3 - Month 2 - Month 1 - Specs
Life with a BYD Atto 3: Final report
First impressions aren’t always reliable but you can be sure of these final ones - 10 January 2024
There's a very good reason why we conduct more than one type of testing here at Autocar. Spend just a few days with a new car and it can be all too easy to focus on the negatives, whereas with a sustained period together it can work its way under your skin - and that's just what has happened with the BYD.
But let's deal with those negatives first. For one, this is not an exciting car to drive. Not a bad one, by any means, with a decent turn of speed, fluid yet inert steering and a fair amount of body roll but reasonable composure. It corners tidily and competently, but you won't find yourself seeking out favourite roads for a longer route home.
Then there are the controls. Just adjusting the radio or changing the seat heaters requires you to enter the maze of the infotainment system. The screen itself is massive and clear and rotates through 90deg (though I am still not exactly sure why), but the menus are far from intuitive and you'll have to tether your mobile with a cable - conventional USB only, even though there is a micro-USB port - if you want to take advantage of Apple CarPlay via Bluetooth, however.
The climate control is frustrating too. Turn off the power-sapping (and noisy) air conditioning and the Atto 3 has a tendency to mist up, and finding the perfect temperature isn't always easy, This system: you'll find yourself making regular adjustments to keep things comfortable.
But the greatest irritation for me was the insistent beeping of the collision sensor, which seemed to be convinced every parked car I passed was about to jump out in front of me, even applying the brakes quite forcefully on a few occasions, so I tended to delve into the menu maze to try to turn it off when I remembered.
The thing is, working around most of the above became second nature fairly quickly, and if you can look past the frustrations, there is an awful lot to like about this deceptive car. Deceptive because what looks like an innocuous and relatively compact SUV on the outside is in fact remarkably spacious, particularly in the rear, making it an ideal family wagon (despite a relatively compact boot).
The quirky interior has been criticised for being a bit naff, but the fun didn't really wear off in our time together - and every newcomer to it commented on the funky colours, the jazzy lighting, the wacky door handles and particularly the guitar-string door pockets, which aren't as irritating as they sound.
It feels well made too. The heel pad of the driver's footwell mat wore through very quickly, but otherwise the fit, finish and solidity couldn't be faulted, and the slightly narrow seats were comfortable and supportive, with a good driving position, as well as stylish although I am pretty sure that what BYD calls vegan leather' was in my day known as vinyl.
It's also practical, with well-placed storage cubbies and a useful wireless phone charger - just one small element of a spec list that is near-impossible to fault (even if the odd former Kia driver may bemoan the absence of a heated steering wheel).
As for the dreaded subject of range, the fact that it's a topic that has barely crossed my mind either means that I, like so many of us, am simply getting used to life with an EV, or that the BYD's is useful enough for it not to be a concern. I tend to lean towards the latter.
Around town and on shorter journeys, 200-plus miles was perfectly possible - more if you are a bit less enthusiastic with the heated seats and the air-con - and it was only fast motorway runs that really sapped the Atto 3's energy.
Usefully, there are two settings for the range readout on the binnacle: the usual optimistic stab in the dark, or what BYD calls 'Adaptive Mode'. I call it 'Honesty Mode'. When you trust what the car is telling you, then you are more inclined to use the battery's capacity rather than desperately seek a charge every time you drop below 30%.
And on the subject of charging, the BYD never once failed to connect either to my home Evios unit or a public charger - something that can tbe said for all of its rivals.
A colleague recently referred to the BYD as "just transport", but I prefer to think of it as a comfortable pair of slippers in automotive form.
If that sounds like damning with faint praise, I can pay it no higher a compliment than this: my past three cars have been a Cupra Born, a Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric and the Atto 3, all direct rivals, and while I might have preferred the Cupra as a driver's car, and the Mégane made a bigger style statement, as a dependable, flexible family car that just made life easy, the BYD was the pick of the bunch.
Second Opinion
I was impressed by its range and efficiency, but over time the novelty of its lairy interior wore off and its software gripes shone through. Despite its inoffensive road manners, the awkwardly configured infotainment screen and fiddly climate controls are real bugbears.
Sam Phillips
Love it:
Rear of the year As well as being roomy, it is considerate of rear passengers, with sockets, vents and adaptive lights.
Uptown funk It can be accused of being naff but the funky interior feels nicely made, works well and adds a bit of fun.
Smooth operator Unlike many rivals that sit on vast 20in rims, the BYD’s 18s and tall sidewalls aid the supple ride.
Loathe it:
First world problem Why bother putting in two cupholders if they can’t accommodate two cups?
Dish the dirt The daft door design collects road grime on its inside leading edge, which can’t easily be hosed off.
Final mileage: 8656
Life with a BYD Atto: Month 3
Automatic headlights are responsive, but poor on dipped beam - 21 November
The Atto’s headlights are something of a contradiction: excellent on full beam but bordering on inadequate on dipped beam. Perhaps I need to delve into the menus again to try to adjust their height. Fortunately, the automatic functionality is superresponsive, flicking them back to full as soon as oncoming traffic has passed. And the light bar that runs across the nose looks cool.
Mileage: 6672
The Atto 3 is pricy, but comes with some premium kit - 1 November
A few people have said that the BYD seems expensive for a newcomer, at a little under £40,000. But its features match far costlier cars’, not least the exceptional 360deg camera system, something that was once the preserve of seriously high-end cars. The range of views is remarkable and the accuracy is pinpoint, plus it appears on the touchscreen automatically to help you see out of tricky junctions
Mileage: 5231
Life with a BYD Atto: Month 2
Lock and load: our EV makes easy work of both those jobs - 25 October
A lot of my driving life seems to revolve around my cars’ load-carrying ability, to the extent that boot space has become a bit of an obsession: I’ve got two highly strung dogs who don’t like being too close together, I regularly carry huge loads when restocking the local food bank, I’m the school run taxi most days for four kids and, in the case of an EV, I’m often having to get the charging cable out.
With all that in mind, I was a little concerned about how the Atto 3 was going to work out in daily life, given its published capacities of 440 litres of boot space, rising to 550 litres when filling to the roof and 1338 litres with the rear seats folded.
In practice, however, I can’t help feeling that those numbers are a little pessimistic. I’m presuming they were measured with the two-level floor in its uppermost position – which leaves a huge space beneath to store the two very bulky charging cable bags – and further impacted by the weirdly low-set rear parcel shelf, which is a disappointingly flimsy item in comparison to the impressive quality of the rest of the interior.
In that state, you get a nice high load level but a really compromised boot (although the large cubbyholes on either side are useful to prevent smaller items sliding around once on the move). You also get a surprising amount of bump-thump from the rear suspension, which is amplified by having what is in effect a speaker box on top of it – despite the ride itself being really quite good.
Drop the floor to its lower setting and that noise becomes more muffled, and the boot suddenly feels generously deep and spacious – particularly with that fiddly and cheap-feeling parcel shelf relegated to the house. The dogs don’t mind the drop over the load lip, and the bespoke rubber mat fitted to my car is more than up to protecting the carpet beneath from their claws.
It’s a shame BYD didn’t see fit to add release levers at the back of the boot for the split rear bench. You need to go round to each back door in turn to free the seatbacks by pulling a little strap behind the headrest, having tucked the seatbelts out of the way to allow them to drop down.
And you’ll need to remember those seatbelts when putting it back to passenger spec, too, because they are all too easy to trap in the mechanism. But once you’ve folded them, you can fit a pretty decent amount in there – with a near-flat load bay for larger items if you have the floor raised, or dropped for extra space (in that mode, 30 plastic 25-litre boxes is my record so far).
An electric tailgate is something I never thought necessary before having a car fitted with one, but I now find it really useful – in particular, the ability to close the boot from the driver’s seat when distracted/sleepy children have taken their bags out and forgotten to press the button before wandering off into school.
It’s a shame the Atto 3 doesn’t have the ‘magic foot wave’ option for hands-free operation (or if it does, it doesn’t work). But the lock button on the boot itself is really useful, securing all of the doors once the tailgate is down and automatically closing the windows and panoramic sunroof for peace of mind.
Love it
On a charge
The wireless phone charger is perfectly sited ahead of the gearlever and seems to be very efficient (unlike some).
Loathe it
