BYD is planning to ramp up its presence for the Indian market with an onslaught of new electric vehicles (EV) to be launched in the coming years. A relatively new player in the passenger vehicle market of India, BYD currently offers three EVs in India namely eMax 7, Atto 3, and Seal.
The Chinese auto giant is now gearing up to launch another new EV next week. It has been revealed that BYD will officially unveil the Sealion 7 in India at the upcoming Bharat Mobility Global Expo on 17 January 2025. The Sealion 7 will be the fourth fully-electric model in the country’s passenger vehicle market ever since it stepped into this space three years ago.
The Sealion 7 made its global debut in November 2024 and it’s expected to hit the streets in India in the first half of 2025. Created under the guidance of the company’s Global Design Director Wolfgang Egger, the Sealion 7 is based on the same skateboard EV platform as the Seal EV. However, the Sealion 7 is 30mm longer and 160mm taller than Seal.
BYD Sealion 7: Battery & Motor specs
Based on the company’s state-of-the-art vehicle architecture called e-Platform 3.0 which incorporates blade cell technology. This technology is claimed to be incredibly space efficient, with cells installed directly into the pack, instead of being fitted in multiple modules. This allows more cells to be squeezed into the same area than with a conventional battery construction – while still resulting in a slim pack that helps BYD’s engineers and designers to optimise the BYD SEALION 7’s cabin space.
The Blade Battery uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) as a cathode material. LFP has higher levels of safety and durability compared with conventional lithium-ion batteries, while also being 100% free of cobalt, a material that has raised ethical and environmental concerns in the mining industry.
The Sealion 7 is offered in both single-motor, rear-wheel drive and dual-motor, all-wheel driver versions. BYD offers multiple battery options with the Sealion 7 including 82.5 kWh and 91.3 kWh. The former is offered in both RWD and AWD versions of 482 km and 456 km, whereas the 91.3 kWh unit only comes with the AWD configuration which claims a 502 km (WLTP) range on a single charge.
All versions of the BYD Sealion 7 get 11 kW three-phase AC charging as standard, and there’s a choice of DC rapid-charging rates. Using a 150 kW DC fast charger, the batteries can be juiced up from 10% to 80% in just 32 minutes.