BYD Atto 2 2026 Review: The Cheapest EV SUV You Can Buy
I’m Tom Baker. This is Chasing Cars and today we finally get our first chance to drive this, the BYD2 on Australian roads. Now, we’ve driven this car overseas before, but proving grounds and car parks in China are no substitute for actually getting the vehicle out onto Aussie roads. The AD2 is Australia’s cheapest electric SUV. So, there’s got to be a catch, right? Well, the first catch is that this one that I’ve got with me here is the AD2 Premium. This is not Australia’s cheapest electric SUV. That would be the base grade of this car, which is 32 grand plus on-road costs. This one is 36 grand plus onroads. But there’s a few reasons you’ll want to consider spending the extra 4 grand, as we’ll see in today’s video. We’ll start inside the ADO2. We’ll check out the front seat, the back seat, and the boot. Discuss the running costs and how much energy I’ve used in this car. take it for a drive and then I’ll give you the verdict of my first impressions on the AD2. But before we get started, hit subscribe. Chasing Cars, honest reviews of your next car, brought to you by Direct. As I mentioned up front, this AD2 is the premium. So, we’re looking at $3590 plus on-road costs. So, sort of 39 grand drive away, which is, you know, pretty affordable, but no longer kind of that bargain basement pricing. BYD has also just announced the ADO1 which is not an SUV. It’s a little hatchback and that starts at $2390 plus on-road cost. So you’re spending about 8 grand more like for like to get into the SUV. But as we’ll see, the 802 is quite practical. So that extra spend might make sense. So what are you getting? You’re getting a functional interior that’s pretty cleanly designed and has really what you would expect. This car is not luxurious. It’s not the last word in modernity, but what it does is just sort of deliver on the promise of nice, adequate, comfortable, small SUV motoring, which is good. So, we have in front of us two screens. A 12.8 in display over here, which is 10 in if you go for the base model, and a digital instrument cluster, which is all relatively basic up here. But this screen works quite well. Snappy, quick, relatively bright and colorful. Has wireless Apple CarPlay and wireless Android Auto, plus voice command. And you can even do this. Hey BYD, what’s up? Rotate the screen. Okay, rotating the screen. So, if you want to use a portrait app because things like Tik Tok and stuff might come to this system later, you can watch it in portrait orientation. Now, the Upspec model gets some really nice stuff. Firstly, 50W wireless charging. For me, the biggest difference is the heated and cooled and power adjustable front seats. The cooling is a godsend because we are sitting on black vinyl upholstery in both variants and this is going to cook you if you don’t have the seat cooling in the premium. So, I’d be spending the 4 grand just to get that. You’re also getting a glass roof with a sun shade if you care about that. Four extra speakers taking us to eight speakers on the premium plus a few other bits and bobs. So, while this is not the price leading version, I think it makes sense to spend up on the premium if you want to be most comfortable and most costed in this car. Speaking of that, the seats, they’re reasonably comfortable. They lack under thigh tilt adjustment, which means if you got longer legs, kind of like me, it’s a little hard to get comfortable for a long journey, but we’ve got good storage, big cup holders here, really deep tray between the chairs, decentiz bottle holders in the doors, and the visibility out is good because this car is basically a box. All right, let’s check out the back seats. Under the skin, the ADO2 runs on BYD’s Eplatform 3.0, zero, which means it has a completely flat floor that was designed for EVs first, even though there is a plug-in hybrid version of this car overseas. Watch this space maybe on that. Back seat space is also quite good. For myself, it’s 6′ or 183 cm. I’ve got plenty of headroom, lots of leg room, good tow room, and you could get a fifth person in the center seat here because unlike the AT1, the ATO2 does have a fifth seat belt. It also has two extra USB ports here in the back. So, you have four for the car. And you also have a rear air vent. Not vents, but one vent, which means either one person can have it or the other. So, this is going to be the source of fights between sibs on road trips, I would expect. But if it’s blowing towards you, life is good. We also have a flip down armrest, two cup holders, and again, those sorts of big windows that are easy to see out of, which will help to prevent car sickness. Moving around the back now, a quick word on design. Now, it’s certainly not my job to tell you what cars look good or bad, but to my eyes, the ADO2 is just fine. It’s It’s quite a generic exterior aesthetic. I think it’ll appeal to a lot of people, or at least you won’t find it ugly. You can let me know what you think down below in the comments. Now, this one’s in mist gray. That is one of the premium colors. Kind of like a light lime green sort of color. Bit interesting. Manual tailgate on both variants. 380 L of boot space. So that’s your sort of Volkswagen Golf level of boot space. Not too bad. No spare wheel and tire, unfortunately. Just a goo kit underneath the boot floor, but also quite a bit of extra space down there. 60/40 folding on your rear seats, so you can use it as a little van if you want to, which means it’s now time for us to talk about running costs. Well, the Auto2 might be fairly cheap to buy, but what is it going to cost you to run? The main cost of course is going to be your electricity consumption. Now, this vehicle has a 51 kWh LFP BYD blade battery. Now, LFP batteries are nice and safe, but they’re also less energy dense than more common NMC batteries. That means that typically the Auto2 won’t be as efficient as a car with an NMC battery, but with LFP, you can also charge it to 100% with regularity, so swings and roundabouts. The point is BYD claims 345 km of range WLTP for this car. The good news is is that on my test today which had a bit of town, bit of highway, bit of country road, a good mix, I actually managed to get 359 ks of range or 14.2 kwatt hours per 100 km. So that’s okay. It’s decent for a car of this size. It’s certainly usable. One of the issues though is charging. So AC, yet another BYD where we’re limited to just 7 kW charging. It’s pretty slow in this day and age. No three-phase charger on board. DC is 82 kW peak speeds, but from 10 to 80% this thing needs 39 minutes, which feels like living in the past. That is a average speed of about 59 kW across that session. Would love to see BYD work on that. Servicing pricing. I don’t have it on me now, but if I receive it before you watch this video, it will be magically on screen. Warranty is 6 years 150,000 KS on the car, 8 years, 160,000 KS on the battery. So, time for our first drive on Aussie roads in the ADO2. And I’m out here on a testing road that I use outside Sydney, which is fairly faithful. It’s got bumps, it’s got corners, but I’ve also driven this car in metropolitan Sydney and on the highway. So, I feel like I’ve had a pretty decent test of it. To be honest, and what I can tell you is that the AD2 is safe and easy and comfortable to drive. It is the anti- sports SUV in many ways. And I think that will appeal to some people. As you can see from the outside, it rides on sensibly sized alloy wheels, either 16s in the base car or 17s, and the ride quality is very soft and comfortable in any of them. Now, the Upspec Premium does get handcooked tires, whereas the Downspec Dynamic has Westlake tires, so a lesser known brand. It’s always nice to have the better tires, but mechanically, the only other real difference is the fitment of the 17-in wheels. Everything else is the same, including the 130 kW, 290 Nm front motor, which kind of has enough power, but not kind of an overwhelming amount of power. It doesn’t spin its front wheels off the line, but it does 0 to 100 km/h in 7.9 seconds. Merging and overtaking on country roads do require a little bit of planning, though, because the ADO2 runs out of puff above 100 km/h quite quickly, but it’s no different to most small SUVs in that sense. Just don’t go thinking this is an electric car that pushes you into the back of the seat because frankly it doesn’t. In the other direction, the regen braking I like, particularly in its higher setting, though it isn’t true one pedal driving. Feels quite natural to me. However, the ride and handling is also simple and plush and soft. There’s not a huge amount of body control here, which is what it means when a car is really tired down to the road and keeps the body very level while you take corners and bumps. There are some shimies both laterally and up and down in this car. when you hit a bump in the middle of a corner, but it’s kind of not the worst I’ve tested. And the ADO2 holds it together reasonably well on a country road, which is important because you will occasionally drive in the country, even if you’re based in town. The steering is slow but sure-footed, and if you’re on the handcooked tires of the premium, grip levels are also okay. The traction control and stability control are safe as houses. This is the kind of car I’d feel very comfortable putting a new young driver into because it just doesn’t let you do anything silly without clamping down, which is good for that kind of market. That being said, it’s definitely not a sports SUV. Maybe BYD would do a sharper version of this car in future. Who knows? Safety features are decently tuned, I would say. The adaptive cruise is very good. Blind spot monitoring works well, as does the 360 camera on the premium. The lane keeping assist is not overbearing, but you do know it’s there. The speed monitoring is a bit annoying, though. It bings whenever it thinks you’re over speed or if there’s a new speed limit. Deactivating that stuff is three or four taps through the screen. You do have to turn off the speed and lane systems every time you drive if you don’t like those technologies, but again, not annoying enough to really warrant a serious criticism. So, is the Auto2 the best driving small SUV? No, it isn’t. But it’s also really quite competent. So, that brings us to the need for a verdict on the BYD2. Frankly, for me, this car does enough. Is it the best driving small SUV in the world? No, it isn’t. But, frankly, it’s pretty inoffensive to drive. It’s got enough power, quite a soft ride quality, absorbs bumps well. Sure, it isn’t a sporty SUV, but I don’t think that’s necessarily what buyers actually want in this segment. And hey, BYD might eventually do one anyway. It feels like the right car for the times, but even writer might be the plug-in hybrid version of the AD2, which is available overseas and would not surprise me if it came to Australia. Maybe that would be even cheaper, which would be a good thing because while the ADO2 is quite affordable in base grade, you’re sort of looking in the mid30s drive away. I actually think the premium is not that much of a screaming deal. You’re looking at almost 40 grand drive away. Yes, it’s electric, has okay range, has a nice amount of spec inside, but you’re starting to get a few other rivals coming in at that sort of price, which should also be considered. Keen to know your opinions. Let me know down below in the comments. While you’re there, hit subscribe and the notification bell.
The cheapest electric SUV on the market has landed, but is the BYD Atto 2 actually worth your cash? We take a 500km test in the newcomer to find out.
Chasing Cars founder provides a review of the 2026 BYD Atto 2 focussing on the Premium grade and setting out the pricing, features, boot space, real-world range, charging details and driving commentary for the new Chinese electric SUV.
Rivals to the Atto 2 include the Hyundai Kona EV, forthcoming Leapmotor B10, and hybrids including the MG ZS and Chery Tiggo 4.
Time codes:
0:00 – What is this video about?
0:19 – Atto 2 pricing
0:45 – In this video
1:07 – Interior and tech
3:35 – Back seats
4:34 – Styling
5:00 – Boot space
5:25 – LFP battery
6:00 – Real-world range test
6:20 – Charging speeds
6:45 – Servicing and warranty
7:00 – How does the Atto 2 drive?
9:45 – Safety features
10:27 – Our verdict
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