BYD’s latest pair of affordable electric vehicles, the Dolphin and the Seal, have been awarded five-star ANCAP safety ratings under the organisation’s strict 2023 test protocols.
Kicking off with the Seal, BYD’s medium-sized electric vehicle scored 89% for adult protection, 87% for child protection, 82% for vulnerable road user protection and 75% for safety assist.
Full points were awarded to the Seal for driver and child passenger protection, with adequate results posted for the frontal offset and rear passenger chest protection.
The smaller BYD Dolphin secured its five-star ANCAP safety rating with scores of 89% for adult protection, 86% for child protection, 85% for vulnerable road user protection and 77% for safety asssist.
The Dolphin demonstrated ‘good’ and ‘adequate’ protection levels for adults in crash tests, with ANCAP noting ‘marginal’ levels of protection for the driver’s chest in the frontal offset test.
The Dolphin scored maximum points for child protection in both frontal and side-impact tests.
Interestingly, one of ANCAP’s latest tests under the 2023 protocols includes a water submergence simulation.
ANCAP says that both the Seal and Dolphin met the requirements of opening the doors and staying functional for a minimum period of two minutes, while window opening functionality was not demonstrated.
The Dolphin and Seal are the third vehicles to receive ANCAP safety ratings under the new test protocols, after the Lexus RZ scored the first five-star rating back in September.
“Our 2023 test and rating criteria have introduced further requirements for high levels of structural protection as well as new challenges for manufacturers in the area of active safety systems and, pleasingly, the three models rated so far this year have each received five-star ratings,” says ANCAP’s Chief, Carla Hoorweg.
“This is a trend we’d like to see continue as we finalise testing and assessments on a number of new models later this year,” she added.
