![]() The Dolphin brings a nice set of standard features across all trims - a 12.3-inch center infotainment screen, 360-degree cameras, adaptive cruise control and various safety features. The WLTP range is 459 km while the maximum power output is 201 hp. The Comfort and Design iterations pack a more serious 60.4 kWh battery with 11kW AC and 88 kW DC charging. The WLTP range ratings are 340 km and 303 km, respectively. Active only has 94 hp, while the Boost can go up to 174 hp and ships with a multi-link rear suspension for added comfort. ![]() The first two, Active and Boost, feature a 45 kWh battery with 7 kW AC charging and 60 kW fast DC charging. ![]() The BYD Dolphin will debut in four configurations called Active, Boost, Comfort and Design. Deliveries start in Q4 this year, with pre-orders commencing this summer. There are also plenty of questions to be answered about aftersales care – HiPhi is opening its own boutiques (for want of a better word) at Munich airport and in a Norwegian shopping centre at first, with no intel yet about what will follow after.BYD announced that it's bringing its small EV, the Dolphin, to the European market back in April and now the company has detailed the pricing and available trims. But HiPhi is only bringing in very top spec models, and swears you’ll have to spends tens of thousands more to get equivalent performance from one of those legacy brands. We need to drive a European-spec car in the UK – which sounds like a cop-out but also makes the most sense before we suggest anyone holds off on the usual suspects because a hundred-thousand-Euro Chinese Super GT is on the way in 2025. Early adopters needn’t worry too much, as the there’s a plan to offer them a trade-in solution as soon as the improved charging is available. It’s likely to be a temporary handicap, as EU-friendly sockets and faster charging tech will be loaded into the cars as soon as HiPhi can make this happen – certainly by 2024. Not that there’s much feedback through the steering in general, but the weighting is well-judged enough that you’re quickly confident about the available cornering speed – technical measures to control understeer and oversteer are present on the spec sheet, but we clearly didn’t get anywhere close to those thresholds while dicing with the German commuter traffic. Helping here is a rear-wheel steering system with 6.6 degrees of +/- latitude (so a huge 13.2 degrees overall) that manages to only rarely give you the sense that anything unusual is happening. With the assured ride that kind of bulk and length of wheelbase often brings with it, Germany’s well-tended tarmac rarely troubles the passenger compartment the Sport setting is a touch more leaden over bumps than Comfort (duh) but neither will let the Z get too far out of shape in the corners. Hence the multi-axis robot screen arm (the HiPhi Bot), the use of LEDs in unusual places (including the HiPhi Star Ring ISD on the doors), the power everything, and a degree of digital customisation that surpasses all that we’re so far used to in Europe.Īs a self-proclaimed Super GT, the Z is low-slung and long, with variable air-sprung suspension and Continuous Damper Control (CDC) to help manage its 2.5-tonnes of mass. HiPhi reckons it can match the best – well, Audi, BMW, Mercedes – for quality of fit and finish, and driving experience, while squashing them like bugs when it comes to tech capability. HiPhi isn’t chasing volume targets it’s chasing premium EV customers who either want the next interesting thing or haven’t yet found the right electric vehicle to tempt them out of their combustion habit. So what’s the game plan here? World domination? Over 10,000 X models are already on the road back home, and sales of the Z – which was only launched in late 2022 – have now topped 1000. ‘We believe that the future holds many incredible advances for humanity, and we want to support the growth of technology in a way that helps make life more enjoyable and convenient.’īrain not bent enough just yet? Then know the firm only came into being in 2017, and went from zero to Chinese bestseller in its chosen segment in just 3.5 years. Those are the infrastructure and autonomous mobility strands ‘We are obsessed with thinking about the future,’ says Human Horizons founder and CEO, Ding Lei.
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