2023 BYD Dolphin review: Big splash in Singapore town

With the state of new car prices the way they are, drivers in Singapore are demanding more from their cars than ever before.

It's a paradox but when you're paying more than S$130,000 for a compact car like a Suzuki Swift in 2023, when it cost just $86,000 in 2021, you better pack it full of standard equipment to make it feel worthwhile.

Into this scenario dives the Build Your Dreams (BYD) Dolphin, an all-electric hatchback that's about the size of a Honda Jazz and Jazz Crosstar.

With a retail price tag of $160,888 with Certificate of Entitlement (COE) at time of writing, the BYD Dolphin is officially the cheapest new Electric Vehicle (EV) you can buy in Singapore.

The BYD Atto 3 electric Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) set a high standard for its cars, including winning CarBuyer Singapore's Value Champion of the Year award.

Can the Dolphin live up to the standards of its big brother the Atto 3?

Design and Interior

The design of the car is quite unique and bubbly, with EV theme evident from the closed-off front end as there is no need for large amounts for intake air.

Daytime running lights at the front are complemented by the squiggly, full-width light beams at the rear.

A wide plastic finishing trim piece covers the C-pillars part of the design to blend the windows and sides of the car into one coherent element.

It fits right into the present hatchback styling trends, but there's also an obvious BYD signature to the way the car has been designed, and that's a good sign the Chinese carmaker has already shown that it is fully capable of leading the way in mainstream carmaking, with no real need to copy from anywhere else.

The cabin isn't as radically styled as the Atto 3's, but the signature BYD rotatable main infotainment screen is here.

The native Global Positioning System (GPS) software is excellent and with a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card included you can also get Spotify to play almost any song ever recorded, should the radio stations get too boring for you.

The display supports split screen mode in both portrait (vertical) and landscape orientations, so your passenger can search for songs on the Spotify playlist while navigation is unaffected.

While the landscape mode of the screen seems more natural, we found that the GPS map displays really far, and in great detail, in portrait mode because the viewing distance ahead is greatly increased.

It also has amazingly effective voice-controlled assistance, similar to what you can find in current BMWs. Feel flustered by all the controls? Say, "Hey BYD," and tell the car what you want.

She'll acknowledge it in perfect english. Navigation selections and air-conditioning adjustments are the most often used voice-controlled functions in our experience. The same female Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice will nag at you if you or your passengers forget to clip in your seatbelt.

Round blower vents are set across the dashboard, and the door opening levers resemble dolphin flippers. The drive selector is a little toggle on the centre console. It's tidy, but the actual switchgear could have done with more damping to reduce the wobbly plastic feel.

One curious design element is the big trench-like tray area on top of the dashboard that runs the width of the whale dash.

While it looks like a place to dump tissue boxes, we would advise against it. On a bright sunny day, it becomes obvious that the "trench" is a sunken depression that's designed to completely remove the glare of sunlight reflecting off the dashboard top and onto the front windscreen.

Cubby holes for hiding stuff are everywhere on the centre console, but despite the very obvious mobile phone tray in the middle there is no wireless charging for smartphones.

Well, as the most affordable EV in Singapore right now, something's got to give. The good news is that there are Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports for both the front and rear seats.

The seats are supportive and comfortable in that sofa-like way, and the flat floor of the rear adds a lot of perceived legroom to the interior.

Right at the back, the boot has a split-level floor and is very roomy for a car of this size too.

If you want to really dig into it, build quality is perhaps a tiny percentage lower than what Kia and Hyundai already deliver, but it's really not bad at all and certainly of a much better standard than what the Mitsubishi Space Star and Attrage used to deliver.

ALSO READ: BYD's Dolphin makes a splash locally

This article was first published in CarBuyer.