BYD Dolphin vs MG4

Here'sa utube vid on the BYD Dolphin vs MG4 in Australia. Oh my BYD is notdoing well down under.

 

[Rolfe]

Just saying.

MG4 Reviews from various online publications

For any MG4 write-ups & video reviews. I'll kick it off with this one: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/mg/mg-mg4/358500/new-mg4-2022-review https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/mg-outlines-ambitious-plans-for-mg4-aims-to-be-the-uk-s-second-biggest-electric-car-in-2023...

www.mgevs.com

 

[meicd]

Got to love that reporting style.

 

[Ian Key]

Can't work out if he likes the BYD or not.

 

[Scouse plumber]

waste of 17 min learned nothing

 

[siteguru]

You mean you weren't entertained?

 

[Rolfe]

I thought it was funny. Frankly I wouldn't have that Dolphin on a bet, it's far too small. Have you seen the headroom at the back? And the luggage space?

 

[siteguru]

Another comparison:

 

[Scouse plumber]

This guy is comparing apples and oranges
The byd is a city car 40 kilowatt battery the one being sold in the UK will be a 60 kilowatt battery and a higher rated motor
Having a few hammers and wrenches behind you does not qualify you for corrosion analysis
The area showing corrosion had parts s sealed and bolted them and then dipped for galvanic isolation
The pictures were taken of scrapped car and that area was left exposed to oxygen which caused the light rusting.
As I understand the blade battery is less prone to fire and has been tested with a nail being driven through it.
I visit this site to be informed and secondly entertained in this case neither
I'm not saying that BYD are any better or worse than MG just to be a balance both are china manufactured

 

[Deleted member 10041]

This guy is comparing apples and oranges
The byd is a city car 40 kilowatt battery the one being sold in the UK will be a 60 kilowatt battery and a higher rated motor
Having a few hammers and wrenches behind you does not qualify you for corrosion analysis
The area showing corrosion had parts s sealed and bolted them and then dipped for galvanic isolation
The pictures were taken of scrapped car and that area was left exposed to oxygen which caused the light rusting.
As I understand the blade battery is less prone to fire and has been tested with a nail being driven through it.
I visit this site to be informed and secondly entertained in this case neither
I'm not saying that BYD are any better or worse than MG just to be a balance both are china manufactured

Totally agree, definitely not like for like and certainly a smaller car which isn't going to suit everyone's needs.
As you have said the blade batteries are amongst the best out there, I read somewhere that Tesla were apparently using/looking to use them

 

[meicd]

Totally agree, definitely not like for like and certainly a smaller car which isn't going to suit everyone's needs.
As you have said the blade batteries are amongst the best out there, I read somewhere that Tesla were apparently using/looking to use them

I think the point he made was about the $100 difference and for that money they are a comparison.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

There has to be more in common than price to make it a like for like comparison

 

[AndyL61]

There has to be more in common than price to make it a like for like comparison

If you are comparing cars do you not look at similarly priced cars to evaluate value for money ?

 

[meicd]

That’s his point. They are similar price and the BYD is rubbish in comparison to the MG4 for $100 difference. Why would you buy something so bad for the same money.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

If you are comparing cars do you not look at similarly priced cars to evaluate value for money ?

I look at various cars that fit into the category that I'm looking for, size, space, luggage space, performance, equipment, looks

 

[Malcolm Anderson]

Did people miss the the crash test onthe Atto 3 in the vid and the order from the Australian Government on the children's seat anchorages is totally damning. It also seems that the BYD Han (hopefully) hasn't got the Blade Battery as it has had somequite serious FIRES so lets hope that is the case. As to the relevance of the price of a car when buying one. It is of course very important, if it wasn't I would have bought a new Hyundai E Niro but I couldn't afford the £39,000 price but could afford my 1st MG ZS excl Gen1 for £24,800! I quite liked the look of the Atto 3 when it first came out but the price kept changing and now is in line with many European EVs and I really liked the Reno E Magane when I road tested it so I would buy one of them rather than the Atto3. But I love my MG5 lr so I bought a Solar Edge house battery instead of changing for the Reno.

 

[Bazza]

Top Gear does a 1st drive review. Make of it what you will -

BYD Dolphin review: trapped in the fishing nets of disappointment - Rated 4/10
£29,490 when new

The Dolphin’s biggest issue comes with the driving.


Full disclosure: the cars on the international launch of the Dolphin were all set in some sort of factory transport mode which doped the accelerator and delivery to comatose levels. A full pedal-to-carpet moment brought a full two seconds of nothing, followed by a throttle ramp measured in thousands of metres.

It’s very obviously set up for ride comfort. It’ll suck up potholes and big bumps like a champ, filtering out the worst of the small stuff without a problem. Which is very nice if you’re urban-based.

But the second thing you notice is that the car trades off any handling ability for that suppleness.

Go even slightly faster and it all falls to bits, offering a complete gamut of dynamic FWD weirdness; there’s actually enough grip, but the Dolphin will understeer at times, feel like it’s going to oversteer at others (at mild speed), buck if there’s a mid-corner bump and yes, it’ll porpoise over its own diagonal line (no pun intended) when faced with changing camber.

Bluntly, the BYD Dolphin simply feels unfinished. Or at least like a basic V.1

The brakes are also almost wilfully inconsistent - which feels like an issue with the pedal sensitivity in relation to the regenerative braking - and the steering completely uninterested in having a relationship with the front wheels.

And this wasn’t at terrifying or ridiculous performance car speed, just brisk driving on a twisty road. In fact, it felt a bit like the kind of unresolved performance delivered by the GWM Ora Funky Cat, suggesting that Chinese manufacturers might be better off employing a few more local engineers to set the cars for specific markets. Given that some of the impressions of the car seem largely satisfied with the handling, TG will drive a car again in the UK to see if the car was quietly broken - and not just hampered by software.

Put simply, the rear-wheel drive MG4 feels set up for UK roads and preferences; the Dolphin feels like a ‘world car’ that suits very few. And we know that the MG4 (owned by another Chinese company, SAIC) took on some UK suspension bods. It paid dividends.

Unfortunately, the Dolphin does also act a bit like it’s natural namesake in the fact that it’s always whistling, tooting and making some sort of noise. The advanced driver assistance systems are incredibly intrusive, maddeningly hard to switch off and not entirely gone when you do. The amount of times you may well find yourself interrogating the screens trying to divine what the faint electronic warning hoot was is actually more dangerous than a lack of interruption.

But the killer issue is that the Dolphin also weighs in at far more than we’d - secretly - hoped. You might assume that BYD would want to hit the UK/European market hard by giving us all the good stuff with aggressive pricing, attaining a beachhead in a market that knows precious little about the brand. MG showed exactly how to do that. Instead, the Dolphin undercuts the MG4 by a scant few quid, and it’s not a patch on that car. If the Dolphin had appeared for £20-25k, we’d forgive an awful lot. But it isn’t, so we won’t.

TG will test again when the car is in the UK and update our findings - but for now, this Dolphin isn’t ready to be released into the wild just yet.

Full Review -

BYD Dolphin review: trapped in the fishing nets of disappointment Reviews 2023 | Top Gear

The first thing I thought when I looked at that, was ‘dolphin’. Admit it, it’s just quite nice to have a car with an actual name rather than a slew of numbers or something made-up. Even if it is a bit daft. And not quite as silly-sounding as the forthcoming BYD Seal.

www.topgear.com

 

[Rolfe]

Ouch. But it seems a bit odd to supply cars set in a "transport" mode that cripples their performance to motoring journalists. Especially to TG.

 

[wiz043]

Top Gear does a 1st drive review. Make of it what you will -

BYD Dolphin review: trapped in the fishing nets of disappointment - Rated 4/10
£29,490 when new

The Dolphin’s biggest issue comes with the driving.


Full disclosure: the cars on the international launch of the Dolphin were all set in some sort of factory transport mode which doped the accelerator and delivery to comatose levels. A full pedal-to-carpet moment brought a full two seconds of nothing, followed by a throttle ramp measured in thousands of metres.

It’s very obviously set up for ride comfort. It’ll suck up potholes and big bumps like a champ, filtering out the worst of the small stuff without a problem. Which is very nice if you’re urban-based.

But the second thing you notice is that the car trades off any handling ability for that suppleness.

Go even slightly faster and it all falls to bits, offering a complete gamut of dynamic FWD weirdness; there’s actually enough grip, but the Dolphin will understeer at times, feel like it’s going to oversteer at others (at mild speed), buck if there’s a mid-corner bump and yes, it’ll porpoise over its own diagonal line (no pun intended) when faced with changing camber.

Bluntly, the BYD Dolphin simply feels unfinished. Or at least like a basic V.1

The brakes are also almost wilfully inconsistent - which feels like an issue with the pedal sensitivity in relation to the regenerative braking - and the steering completely uninterested in having a relationship with the front wheels.

And this wasn’t at terrifying or ridiculous performance car speed, just brisk driving on a twisty road. In fact, it felt a bit like the kind of unresolved performance delivered by the GWM Ora Funky Cat, suggesting that Chinese manufacturers might be better off employing a few more local engineers to set the cars for specific markets. Given that some of the impressions of the car seem largely satisfied with the handling, TG will drive a car again in the UK to see if the car was quietly broken - and not just hampered by software.

Put simply, the rear-wheel drive MG4 feels set up for UK roads and preferences; the Dolphin feels like a ‘world car’ that suits very few. And we know that the MG4 (owned by another Chinese company, SAIC) took on some UK suspension bods. It paid dividends.

Unfortunately, the Dolphin does also act a bit like it’s natural namesake in the fact that it’s always whistling, tooting and making some sort of noise. The advanced driver assistance systems are incredibly intrusive, maddeningly hard to switch off and not entirely gone when you do. The amount of times you may well find yourself interrogating the screens trying to divine what the faint electronic warning hoot was is actually more dangerous than a lack of interruption.

But the killer issue is that the Dolphin also weighs in at far more than we’d - secretly - hoped. You might assume that BYD would want to hit the UK/European market hard by giving us all the good stuff with aggressive pricing, attaining a beachhead in a market that knows precious little about the brand. MG showed exactly how to do that. Instead, the Dolphin undercuts the MG4 by a scant few quid, and it’s not a patch on that car. If the Dolphin had appeared for £20-25k, we’d forgive an awful lot. But it isn’t, so we won’t.

TG will test again when the car is in the UK and update our findings - but for now, this Dolphin isn’t ready to be released into the wild just yet.

Full Review -

BYD Dolphin review: trapped in the fishing nets of disappointment Reviews 2023 | Top Gear

The first thing I thought when I looked at that, was ‘dolphin’. Admit it, it’s just quite nice to have a car with an actual name rather than a slew of numbers or something made-up. Even if it is a bit daft. And not quite as silly-sounding as the forthcoming BYD Seal.

www.topgear.com

In fairness Top Gear is the only reviewer to give the Dolphin a bad review to my knowledge. All other reviews I have seen have been very positive.
The entry model Dolphin with 70kw is no match for the entry 125kw MG4 for a similar price but the premium Dolphin with 150kw and 310nm torque seems to be a much better option than the similarly priced 150kw MG4 mainly because it is quicker, with similar range but many more features.

 

[Bazza]

In fairness Top Gear is the only reviewer to give the Dolphin a bad review to my knowledge. All other reviews I have seen have been very positive.

Plus the Top Gear review has various caveats about its own poor rating of the Dolphin.

Lets see how it plays out.

Once MG4's & Dolphins arrive in Australia there will be plenty of reviews from media and owners etc.