BYD Atto 2 review: Can this family-friendly EV compete on price?

The sixth new car to arrive from BYD in just two years, the Atto 2 is a high-tech, posh small SUV that drives well and has lots of space for the family. BYD folk talk about speed a lot. Not the performance on offer from their cars, but the speed with which the company moves. In just two short years, BYD has launched five new cars in the UK, with this – the Atto 2 – the sixth and due to arrive in the UK around September time. It could be beaten to showrooms by the seventh, the small Dolphin Mini, though.

So BYD has made the rest of the car industry sit up and take notice, but buyers are a little slower on the uptake. They shouldn’t be – the Atto 2 is an excellent car that deserves attention, as long as BYD prices it competitively. With the likes of the all-electric Fiat Grande Panda, Vauxhall Frontera and the capacious Citroen e-C3 and even bigger e-C3 Aircross all offering family-friendly space and all the kit you really need with starting prices in the low £20,000s, those same BYD folk are sticking to their guns with a possible UK starting price for the Atto 2 of around £30,000.

Sure, you do get a step up in quality and a big kit upgrade, but it’s not as though the advanced battery tech will give you a big jump in range. In our view, an Atto 2 starting at under £30,000 will be much more attractive. In every other respect, the Atto 2 is a winner; it’s spacious, looks good (not unlike a Mercedes SUV to our eyes), is well made, drives nicely and has loads of high-tech kit on board.

The BYD Atto 2 is most likely to be used in and around town, so we spent plenty of time driving around the city of Madrid where the roads are as busy and bumpy as they are in cities and towns in the UK. We also went out on the motorway and up in the hills, while testing the space in the front, the back and the boot. Independent rating: 8/10. Battery, range, charging, performance and drive. The cars we drove in Spain came with a 45.1kWh battery that has a claimed maximum range of 194 miles. Given BYD’s claims about the high-tech nature of its blade batteries, its third-generation electric car platform and its advanced eight-in-one electrical architecture (which includes numerous efficiency-boosting features including a standard heat pump), we’re surprised the Atto 2 doesn’t have a longer range or charge faster. The 44kWh battery in the larger and cheaper Citroen e-C3 Aircross will run for a claimed 188 miles.

By the time the Atto 2 gets to the UK, the battery pack will have grown to 50kWh, which will probably boost range to around 214 miles. And later in the year, an even bigger battery version will be available (it’ll be even more expensive, obviously) with a 60kWh battery likely for a maximum range of 261 miles. The bigger batteries will charge faster than the 45kWh battery in the car we tested, which will charge at up to 65kW on a suitable fast charger – again, this is slower than the 100kW for the Grande Panda, Citroen C3 models and the Vauxhall Frontera. So, the Atto 2 we drove claims a 10 to 80 per cent charging time of 37 minutes.

On the road, the Atto 2 is one of the nicest family-friendly EVs we’ve driven with a very European feel to the way the car rides and handles. Even over the worst bumps, it’s never uncomfortable, yet the car feels connected and communicates what’s happening on the road surface. Body control is better than on rivals, which means the car will feel less floaty over undulations and is less likely to have you leaning as you drive through corners – which means it’ll be less tiring on long journeys.

There’s also a degree more performance than in some other small EVs, with a decent zero to 62mph time of 7.9 secs. That equates to decent throttle response for nipping in and out of town traffic. Interior, practicality and boot space. For a car that’s just 4,310mm long – not much more than a supermini these days – there’s a huge amount of space inside the Atto 2. When we set up the front seat for a near six-foot tall driver, there was still bags of kneeroom for the same person sitting in the back.

The benefit of BYD’s blade battery tech means that not only is the floor totally flat throughout the car, but the battery also sits lower, making the rear space seem far more spacious than usual. Headroom isn’t a problem, either, even with the standard panoramic sunroof. If we have one slight criticism it’s that the rear doors could open slightly wider – it’ll be fine for most people to get in and out, but wide opening doors are handy if you have to fit a child into their child seat in the back.