The BYD Sealion 6 is the AA DRIVEN Car Guide New Zealand Car of the Year overall winner for 2024. It’s the right car at the right time for New Zealand: an all-new player in the most popular new-vehicle segment in the country, with strong eco-credentials, minimal running cost and plenty of practical space for the family. But it’s also a car we all really enjoy driving.
The BYD brand made a big impression in NZ at launch in 2022, with a range of pure-electric cars: models like the Atto 3 and Dolphin were also the right cars at the right time and both made the overall top 3 in our last two COTY programmes.
The market has evolved a lot in 2024, with a shift away from pure-electrics to hybrid. With Sealion 6, BYD has been able to move with Kiwi buyer preference beautifully: it has put the brand in our COTY top spot for the first time.
You could argue BYD’s dual motor-intelligent (DM-i) “super hybrid” technology is at the heart of Sealion 6. If you want to know more about how it works, click here to read why the BYD is also our top Hybrid/EV. But in essence, you’re getting very generous EV-commuting range of up to 92km, the ability to rapid-charge the battery – and yet all the convenience/distance-driving advantages of a conventional hybrid or even petrol-only car. More so in fact, with an overall range up to 1200km on a single tank/charge combination (according to our real-world testing).
But it’s not clever powertrain technology alone that makes the Sealion 6 a winner. It’s the way BYD has integrated it into in such a distinctive and family friendly package. If you’re not interested in how it works, you don’t have to be: just drive, and enjoy the refinement and high-quality and spacious cabin.
Although there is some advantage in embracing the technical detail. Like pure-electric BYDs, the Sealion 6 features vehicle-to-load (V2L) functionality, which sounds complicated but is actually a brilliantly simple and useful thing: with the aid of an adaptor (included as standard), you can use the power stored inside the vehicle’s battery to power external devices. Anything you can plug in around the house, you can power with a Sealion 6.
The Sealion 6 is available as a $57,990 front-drive Dynamic-specification FWD model or a $64,990 Premium with AWD and substantially more performance (albeit with the opportunity cost of a little less EV range). Either presents outstanding value-for-money against medium-sized SUVs from established brands, to the point where little or no premium is really being asked for the DM-i technology.
The main difference between the two models is the powertrain. Other than detail differences, they offer a very similar interior experience – which is to say amazingly luxurious-feeling for a mainstream family car, including BYD’s signature 15.6in rotating infotainment screen. Like all BYDs, Sealion 6 is “live” with an embedded SIM card, so you get over over-the-air (OTA) updates as and when software improvements become available. In theory, your Sealion 6 will be always be… the best Sealion 6 it can be.
But as it stands right now, the Sealion 6 is the best new vehicle of 2024.
AA DRIVEN CAR OF THE YEAR CLASS WINNERS FOR 2024
City SUV
Family SUV
Large SUV
Passenger
Hybrid/EV
Luxury
Sports/Performance
Lifestyle/Adventure
Safest
People's Choice