Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The electric car scene here is continuing to gain momentum as BYD launches its strongest mainstream EV to date here with the Atto 3. With a maximum power output of 150kW, or 201 horsepower, a claimed driving range of 480km
The Atto 3’s design and build quality inspires plenty of confidence. Measuring 4,455mm in length, it is slightly smaller than a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. The Atto 3’s design and build quality inspires plenty of confidence as well, with an overall form that looks very sleek and original. The spacious cabin is built to show that this car is an EV from ground up, rather than a converted petrol engine chassis.
Unlike the totally button-less surfaces of a Tesla Model 3, BYD’s engineers understand that some toggles are still best left as tactile buttons and the Atto 3’s cabin is a mix of touchscreen interface and buttons on the steering wheel and centre console. If you’re the type that can’t decide whether you want the centre screen to be vertically or horizontally oriented, BYD has you covered with a motorised, rotatable 12.8-inch touchscreen. As far as we know, it’s an industry first.
A lot of the components in the car, from the door handles to the gear lever, look to have been taken straight out of concept cars ideas with their bold designs. Unlike, say, a Hyundai Avante that tries to tread the thin line between a conservative, recognisable car interior and forward design, the BYD Atto 3 simply goes all out.
That’s not to say that the Atto 3 is just an outlandish design exercise for the sake of it. As a practical, five seater urban EV, it has a lot going for it. The spacious cabin features a flat floor, USB Types A and C charging ports, a wireless phone charging deck on the centre console, and even a built-in, onboard video recorder.
Recording through the car’s onboard video camera, it not only records driving footage outside the car automatically but also acts as a sort of black box, recording your use of turn signals and brake pedal application. In the event of a crash or incident, this would be helpful to the traffic police in ascertaining what went wrong.
The Atto 3’ s operating system is BYD’s own DiLink software, and it promises over-the-air updates to customers with some additional features to come before the end of 2023.
The car’s platform rides on fully independent front and rear suspensions, which is a step up from the linked rear suspensions of many other crossover SUVs including the Honda HR-V. It’s front-wheel drive with a 0 to 100km/h sprint time of 7.3 seconds and a top speed of 160km/h. The car has a claimed range of 480km on the NEDC cycle, which is a different test pattern to the more commonly used WLTP cycle that continental cars are typically tested on.
It has a modestly sized 60.5kWh battery and a high speed DC charging capacity of 80kW. The claimed energy consumption is 14.9kWh/100km, which is impressively efficient and even better than the BMW iX3’s claimed efficiency. The car uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, packed in BYD’s proprietary Blade Battery safety cell packs, which has the batteries arranged in modular sets lengthwise. This makes it easier to troubleshoot and replace individual cells should they ever go bad.
The electric car scene here is continuing to gain momentum as BYD launches its strongest mainstream EV to date here with the Atto 3. With a maximum power output of 150kW, or 201 horsepower, a claimed driving range of 480km
The Atto 3’s design and build quality inspires plenty of confidence. Measuring 4,455mm in length, it is slightly smaller than a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. The Atto 3’s design and build quality inspires plenty of confidence as well, with an overall form that looks very sleek and original. The spacious cabin is built to show that this car is an EV from ground up, rather than a converted petrol engine chassis.
Unlike the totally button-less surfaces of a Tesla Model 3, BYD’s engineers understand that some toggles are still best left as tactile buttons and the Atto 3’s cabin is a mix of touchscreen interface and buttons on the steering wheel and centre console. If you’re the type that can’t decide whether you want the centre screen to be vertically or horizontally oriented, BYD has you covered with a motorised, rotatable 12.8-inch touchscreen. As far as we know, it’s an industry first.
A lot of the components in the car, from the door handles to the gear lever, look to have been taken straight out of concept cars ideas with their bold designs. Unlike, say, a Hyundai Avante that tries to tread the thin line between a conservative, recognisable car interior and forward design, the BYD Atto 3 simply goes all out.
That’s not to say that the Atto 3 is just an outlandish design exercise for the sake of it. As a practical, five seater urban EV, it has a lot going for it. The spacious cabin features a flat floor, USB Types A and C charging ports, a wireless phone charging deck on the centre console, and even a built-in, onboard video recorder.
Recording through the car’s onboard video camera, it not only records driving footage outside the car automatically but also acts as a sort of black box, recording your use of turn signals and brake pedal application. In the event of a crash or incident, this would be helpful to the traffic police in ascertaining what went wrong.
The Atto 3’ s operating system is BYD’s own DiLink software, and it promises over-the-air updates to customers with some additional features to come before the end of 2023.
The car’s platform rides on fully independent front and rear suspensions, which is a step up from the linked rear suspensions of many other crossover SUVs including the Honda HR-V. It’s front-wheel drive with a 0 to 100km/h sprint time of 7.3 seconds and a top speed of 160km/h. The car has a claimed range of 480km on the NEDC cycle, which is a different test pattern to the more commonly used WLTP cycle that continental cars are typically tested on.
It has a modestly sized 60.5kWh battery and a high speed DC charging capacity of 80kW. The claimed energy consumption is 14.9kWh/100km, which is impressively efficient and even better than the BMW iX3’s claimed efficiency. The car uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, packed in BYD’s proprietary Blade Battery safety cell packs, which has the batteries arranged in modular sets lengthwise. This makes it easier to troubleshoot and replace individual cells should they ever go bad.
