BYD Dolphin G DM-i set to be the UK’s cheapest plug-in hybrid

This is our first look at the BYD Dolphin G DM-i – a new supermini that will offer small-car customers a plug-in hybrid powertrain at a knock-down price when it arrives later this summer. While specifications are still thin on the ground, it’s understood the car will make its UK debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

Earlier this year, BYD’s executive vice president Stella Li told us “BYD is missing the biggest volume in the B-segment”, and that the maker’s future small and mid-sized cars would be designed in Europe for Europe. The first example is the Dolphin G, a ‘B-segment’ supermini targeting cars such as the Renault Clio and Toyota Yaris, priced from around £23,000.

The Dolphin G “is the first product we are designing purely for Europe, for overseas markets, because there’s no interest in China,” Li told the Financial Times’ Future of the Car summit earlier this month. “In the future, we will have more and more products based on European tastes and consumer needs, and designed locally here.”

So far, we’ve been issued with just four images and very few confirmed specifications for the Dolphin G. We do know that the hybrid supermini will measure 4.16 metres long and 1.825 metres wide – shorter but wider than the company’s Dolphin EV. Yet while it shares part of its name with BYD’s Citroen e-C3 rival, it’s understood to be a very different car.

Expect it to get the maker’s latest DM-i plug-in tech, comprising a 1.5-litre petrol engine linked to a front-mounted electric motor and the brand’s cutting-edge ‘Blade’ battery. The company claims a combined range of 1,000km (621 miles). 

No information has been issued on the size of the battery, or how far it can travel on electric power alone – only that it “combines the zero-emissions ability of a pure EV with the long-distance flexibility of a hybrid”.

Also unconfirmed, it’s thought the Dolphin G will position itself as a tech leader by introducing DC rapid charging to the small-car segment. This should allow owners to top up the battery from 10 to 80 per cent in less than half an hour, at motorway service stations or other large charge hubs.

We’ve not yet been given a look at the car’s interior, but it’s safe to assume that, as with the latest Sealion 5 SUV, the Dolphin G will go without the rotating screen found in BYD’s early European models – including the EV supermini with which it shares a name. We can expect a cleaner dashboard appearance, with a large landscape infotainment system, plus a smaller digital instrument cluster to provide the driver with key data and trip information.

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BYD is pushing hard in the European market, putting the finishing touches to its first car factory in Hungary, its supplier base, and establishing an R&D centre in Budapest, which will work on European cars. It’s a playbook that copies Kia, whose breakthrough European car in 2006 was the European-designed and built Ceed hatchback. It will cause more headaches for Europe’s legacy car industry, with the Chinese brands continuing to take market share.

Pre G, BYDs were designed primarily for Chinese market needs, but Li said the divergence of the two markets required regionalised products, although with shared componentry. “We see a bigger gap now to China,” she explained. “The competition is pushing everybody to make cars bigger and bigger, and the chassis wider and wider, and it’s become crazy. You cannot have a bigger car running in Paris, Rome and London. People there still prefer a smaller-sized car.”

BYD will split its product development for the B and C-segments, with cars less than 4.3m-long – about the size of a Volkswagen Golf – optimised for Europe. Designs will be fine-tuned more for European tastes too, with Li telling us: “I saw the next three years’ cars: their look is based more on European design, no longer Chinese.”

BYD says the Dolphin G DM-i will “go on sale across European markets in the coming weeks”, with customer cars due before the end of the summer. Specifications will be announced nearer the time, but we expect a starting price of around £23,000 – offering PHEV tech for around the same price as non-plug-in rivals.

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