BYD Sealion 5 – South Africa’s Cheapest Plug-in Hybrid SUV
So today we at the launch of the BYD Sea Line 5 and you can see Francisco is right over there. We’ve got Matthew there as well. How’s it? It’s a striking look, eh? So you can immediately see starting from 499,000 rand. This is what you get. Look at these beautiful LED lights. Very beautiful striking design. The only thing that I do not approve of is this silver over here. That’s a a little bit over the top for me. But everything else looks very seamless. I love this flowing design. I like the fact that the lines run all the way through and it’s got that BYD presence to it. Something I like about BYD is the fact that a BYD looks like a BYD. You can’t differentiate it to anything else. Absolutely love that. Let’s quickly have a look at the boot space. So, you pop it open over here. Where is that? There we go. Not too sure about the boot space, but you can see you can get a few bags in here. I see that there’s a bottom storage here. So, probably just going to be for the charging cable, all of that. And then let’s quickly have a look on the inside the interior. I show you the rear space here. Plenty of rear space, guys. Head room, knee room. Everything feels very good. BYD design. I like the attention to detail. Beautiful door card. Soft touch here. Soft touch over here as well as here. And it’s actually like a cushiony feel to it. Then you get your hard plastic over here. Electric seats. This is the dynamic. This is not the comfort. So it’s going to be a little bit more than the $499. But beautiful seats, heated and ventilated, wireless charging. I might be mistaken, 12.3 or 12.8. But this one is not rotatable, so you can’t rotate this screen. But this one over here, 360 surround cam. You get the adaptive cruise control. Beautiful, beautiful design. Absolutely love this. So on the engine, a 1.5 L naturally aspirated engine mated with a 12.9 kWh battery putting out 156 kW and 300 new m of torque. So driving the BYD C Lion 5 immediately just pulling away I could feel how smooth and immediate this car is. You have to kind of be quite careful because if you just touch the accelerator it jumps. But the first impression with this vehicle it immediately you can feel the confidence of the car. So if I go into a corner the there is a little bit of a lag on the steering wheel but it still gives me that confidence that I can at least take the corner. The car feels solid. It feels good. It soaks up the bumps quite well. All in all, I think at this price point, there’s not a lot out there that’s going to beat this car, especially at a drive perspective and the comfort perspective and also with the space that you get. So, let’s quickly test out. This is a plug-in hybrid, so it should be quite instant. 1 2 3. Yes, it is definitely quite instant. Let’s slow down a little bit more. Let’s confuse the car a little bit. One, two, three. Okay, it’s still quite instant there. So I think when the revs pick up a little bit, you feel that torque a little bit more as well.
The BYD Sealion 5 is here – and this one might seriously shake up South Africa’s hybrid & EV market.
In this video, I break down everything you need to know: from powertrain and range to interior features – and whether it’s worth your rand.
• 🔋 It’s a plug-in hybrid SUV, using a 1.5-litre petrol engine + electric motor (the “Dual-Mode Intelligent / DM-i” system) for a combined 156 kW of power. 
• 🔌 Battery: 12.96 kWh – giving a pure-electric driving range of around 50–52 km under WLTP. 
• 🔄 Combined fuel consumption (when using hybrid mode regularly) is claimed to be as low as ~1.3-1.4 L/100 km, depending on charging habits. 
• 🚗 Other perks: 463 L boot, 12.8″ touchscreen infotainment + digital cluster, driver-assist safety suite (adaptive cruise, lane-keeping, emergency braking, blind-spot detection, etc.), and in higher trim – 360° camera, electric sunroof, wireless charging, electric seats. 
💰 Local pricing (South Africa):
• Sealion 5 Comfort – R 499,900 
• Sealion 5 Dynamic – R 569,900 
If you’re thinking about going hybrid in 2026, the Sealion 5 definitely deserves a hard look.
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