You'd be forgiven for having no prior knowledge of the BYD Qin. That's BYD for Build Your Dreams, and Qin, as in the first imperial dynasty of China. It's pronounced 'chin’, as in Jimmy Hill.
BYD could stand for Big Yelping Deal in the electric car world, with the Chinese giant shifting 4,272,145 electrified vehicles in 2024, an increase of 41.3 percent compared with 2023. There's a Big Yawning Divide between BYD and the rest of the electric car market; Tesla delivered a measly 1.79m cars.
Petrolblog doesn't know how to put this, but... BYD is kind of a big deal. It's currently the UK's fastest growing car brand, increasing its volume by 658 percent to 8788 cars in 2024. Not quite Ron Burgundy levels of a big deal, but that's more than Polestar (8693). It's also more than Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Alpine, DS, Maserati and Subaru combined.
The model range has grown to four new models in 18 months, with the Sealion 7 arriving soon. Yes, it's an electric SUV...
The mighty Qin, on the other hand, wasn't an electric SUV. Unveiled as a concept at the 2012 Beijing Exhibition of New Cars, the Qin was a traditional four-door saloon with a choice of hybrid or plug-in hybrid powertrains. The Qin EV300 fully electric version didn't arrive until 2016, ahead of a facelift in 2019. It wasn't a major makeover: the Qin still looked like a Kia Optima that had been Photoshopped using a Grand Theft Auto filter.
To complete the Qin history lesson, the second-generation model was introduced in 2018 with names inspired by products you'd find in a pharmacy: Qin Pro and Qin Plus. Despite an appearance on the hallowed pages of Auto Express, BYD's four-door saloon never made it to the UK. Take the disappointment on the Qin.
It's genuine disappointment, because in plug-in hybrid guise, the BYD Qin featured a 1.5-litre engine and two electric motors to produce a combined 291bhp, enough for a 0-62mph time of 5.9 seconds. That's impressive, especially when it could return an official 177mpg. Still want that Kia Optima?
But it's most defining feature is the heckblende, which looks like the sort of thing you'd find on the back of a new motorhome. It's magnificent; the stuff dreams are made of. More of this sort of thing, please, BYD.
