2026 BYD Seal 6 Touring PHEV review: Australian first drive

The plan was to drive the new BYD Seal 6 Touring from Sydney to Melbourne until the $39,990 plus on-roads plug-in hybrid wagon ran out of fuel. It didn't go to plan...

Sydney to Melbourne, no recharge, no second visit to a bowser, one 65-litre petrol tank and one full 19kWh Blade battery in BYD's brand-new wagon-bootied Super Hybrid.

It was not a hypermile test. While the first leg along the deadly-boring Hume Highway to Albury's overnight stop was an exercise in patience, running a PHEV at 110km/h is not going to do the battery any favours, so the resulting fuel and energy use would make for interesting dinner table discussion. The second leg, using some of the Targa roads in north-east Victoria through the King Valley and Mansfield, even less so. Challenge accepted.

The official combined figure is 0.8 litres per 100 kilometres on the NEDC cycle, which is cheeky given we use WLTP here in Australia. It is also arithmetic that only applies while the battery sits above a 25 per cent state of charge: like all PHEVs, you won't see the fuel gains if you don't plug it in. Given the Touring is rated at 100km of electric-only range, that caveat covers roughly the first tenth of a day like ours.

Once the battery is spent, BYD's own quoted figure becomes 4.1L/100km, and that is the one worth remembering for anyone who travels longer distances without topping up the watts.

The mechanism behind it is the fifth-generation DM-i Super Hybrid system, which we have seen more recently in the Sealion 8, and the trick is that it inverts the usual arrangement. In some hybrids, the petrol engine does the work and the electric motor helps out. Here, the 160kW front motor is the main event, and the 1.5-litre petrol engine, good for a modest 70kW and 120Nm on its own, is brought in when it can operate efficiently.

BYD claims a 46 per cent thermal efficiency for the combustion engine, which is to say nearly half the energy in the fuel ends up doing something useful, and for perspective, an F1 power unit runs around 48 to 50 per cent.

Selecting HEV over EV mode to make the battery last the longest, we left BYD HQ in Sydney and drove around the city streets to the highway, where the Seal 6 is quiet to the point of white noise, with only wind noise around the mirrors making itself known. But as we headed on to the M5 at 80km/h, the engine fired up as a generator without ever touching the front wheels.

Only at the 100/110km highway pace does it clutch in and drive the wheels directly, at which point it is also feeding charge to the battery. Of course, regenerative braking was also on the case for the (very) few times we needed to brake on leg one.

Nothing is asked of the driver in this entire process, and it is very hard to feel the car deciding to switch power sources. After eight hours, that lack of drama is most persuasive. Combined output is 163kW and 260Nm, which is enough for 8.1 seconds to 100km/h. Again, entirely without drama, but the way the torque arrives matters more than the way the power peaks. Because the motor does the initial shove, overtaking a car or caravan is immediate and speed builds nicely, rather than the more uncultured shove of some more muscled EVs.

Another aspect working in its favour is the exterior design, which is sweetly slippery and subjectively rather handsome. For the nerds, it has a drag coefficient of 0.284, which is better than the sedan for cutting through the air. Wagon-backing the sedan has added a slightly taller roof line with roof rails and a power tailgate, and the half-hidden handles are embedded into a low waistline and double creases up the flanks.

The ocean theme and the Seal's signature "Deep Sea Eyes" (read: headlights) translate to the rear with a wave pattern through the tail-lights, and 18-inch five-spoke alloys wear quality 225/50 rubber and fill the wheel arches nicely.

At 4840mm long, 1875mm wide and 1505mm tall on a 2790mm wheelbase, it is a proper mid-size wagon rather than a big-booted sedan afterthought. Arctic White is the standard colour, with Cosmos Black, a blueish Atlantis Grey, and the Touring-only Sage Green costing an extra $600 - our wagon's marine green colour is the one worth the money in the metal.

Inside is where the Premium badge earns its name more readily. There is only one interior colour – black – which is lifted by changeable LED mood lighting and lovely squishy neoprene-feel coverings. There is an 8.8-inch digital instrument cluster and a 12.8-inch central touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, eight speakers that do a reasonable (if not amazing) job of pumping the tunes, over-the-air updates and 4G connectivity that includes 2GB a month for the first two years.

USB-A and USB-C ports appear front and rear, which stops a long drive turning into a screaming match between siblings, and vehicle-to-load (V2L) capability is available to charge heftier 240V stuff, but not through a socket inside, it's via the charging port.

The front seats are synthetic leather, heated and ventilated, six-way power-adjustable with memory for the driver and four-way for the passenger. Importantly, they are supportive enough to have this writer enter the two-day ordeal with a sore back and leave without one – therapeutic, no, but notably comfortable and supportive enough to be a pleasant ergonomic surprise. A panoramic sunroof with shade is standard, as is a 360-degree camera, one wireless phone charger, and keyless entry with a digital key.

The second row is good enough to fit three, though knee room could be better in a car of this footprint. The boot is the real winner here, with SUV-like space of 670 litres behind the rear seats, though this is measured to the roof whereas most measure to the top of the second row of seats. For reference, the Toyota RAV4 SUV claims 655L to the roof in its PHEV. You get another SUV-rivalling cargo volume of 1535L with the 60:40-split rear bench folded.

To drive, it is tuned for comfort and makes no apologies for its soft nature. The stats read as typical MacPherson struts at the front, multi-link rear, ventilated discs up front and solids behind, and 120mm of ground clearance. What this means in actual driving is a controlled rear that is set up with far better rebound than the front, which can get a bit floaty over undulations as it attempts to smooth out the ride as much as possible.

On day two, the Targa roads brought out a surprisingly neutral steer and a settled body with good control. Far from dynamic, but that is also far from what this car is about.

Eco, Normal, Sport and Snow modes are offered, and on our long highway haul the differences between the first three are academic. A quick try of Sport saw a bit more from the motor, while Snow dulled the throttle to the point of aggravation (but hey, it's what it is supposed to do). What matters is that it settles well, goes where you point it and and does not wander. The regenerative braking is also very refined now, and gave back an impressive amount of electrons downhill without much effort from the braking foot at all.

The full suite of driver assistance is standard, including adaptive cruise, traffic sign recognition, forward collision warning, blind-spot detection, lane-departure assist, and a child presence detection that set alarms off when I left my co-driver in the back seat checking the knee room. It's got good old-fashioned child locks too, by the way.

The adaptive cruise was a little less nannying than the intelligent cruise, but both asked for very little forethought or intervention, which after hours behind the wheel is the highest of compliments. And by the time wind noise is your headline complaint, you have essentially stopped complaining.

Which brings us to value, and here the argument will stop dead for many of us. The Seal 6 Touring Premium is $39,990 before on-road costs. It is currently the only spec the wagon comes in, though BYD admits it will bring in a base Essential wagon for a few less dollars if the demand is there.

With the top-shelf Touring and Essential-spec sedan separated by only five grand, it's hard to see the margin or the argument for a lesser spec, or indeed the appeal with so much kit thrown in the Premium-badged car. There are no real options beyond paint, a window tint, a dashcam and a home charger.

The warranty runs six years or 150,000km on the vehicle, eight years or 160,000km on the traction battery, and eight years or 150,000km on the drive unit. It's a phenomenal amount of car for the price, and there are only one or two wagons currently in the vicinity of this price and they can't offer the level of spec nor the fuel economy of this PHEV.

BYD says the Seal 6 Touring "makes wagons cool again", and while the car isn't an Estate version of a high-performing sedan – the really, really cool wagons enthusiasts salivate over – BYD isn't entirely wrong. It is a more resolved and attractive design than the sedan, it is sensible in its space and ability, more than capable of crossing two states without stopping for fuel even with some spirited turns in Sport mode, and at 40 grand it leaves a lot of leftover change for some aviators and designer threads if being cool is your goal.

We rolled to a stop at Melbourne airport with 1002.7km on the trip meter and the car still cheerfully advertising 125km in reserve. BYD had set the route to a kilometre, though many in our group ended up just under a tonne on the dial – we deliberately went the wrong way with 50km to go and ensured we hit triple figures. Not competitive at all...

Our end result sat between the fantasy and the fine print: add the 125km the car reckoned it still had in the 'tank' to the 1002.7km we had clocked, and we finished with a theoretical 1127.7km from that single tank and charge. Our final calcs were 4.9L/100km and 1.3kWh/100km on the car's trip computer. So without hypermiling, without running entirely in Eco mode, using cruise at the speed limits and having a bit of fun through the wine regions, the wagon apparently had more left over, even if the driver was absolutely out of juice by this point.