BYD Sealion 7: DiPilot 10, when China gets DiPilot 100
A 390 kW, 502 km Model Y rival with the world's fastest production motor — and a driver-assistance suite BYD numbers one tenth of the one it sells at home. At £57,290, that gap is the most expensive thing about it.
BYD calls the driver-assistance suite in the European Sealion 7 DiPilot 10. In China, the Sealion 07 runs DiPilot 100 — God's Eye C — with a roof lidar, a 4K roof camera and navigation-on-autopilot that handles traffic lights and overtakes on city streets. The names are not marketing whimsy. They are BYD's own numbering for how much compute is behind the windscreen, and the car sold in Britain is an order of magnitude down the scale from the one sold in Shenzhen.
Everything else about it is seriously impressive. The rear motor spins to 23,000 rpm — BYD says the fastest in mass production — for 230 kW on its own or 390 kW and 690 Nm with the front unit added, which is 4.5 seconds to 100 km/h in a 2.3-tonne family SUV. The Blade battery is bonded into the floor as structure. The top Excellence takes 230 kW DC and does 10 to 80 per cent in 24 minutes, with 502 km of WLTP range. It is a proper Model Y rival on every axis the showroom measures.
DiPilot 10, the suite in the European car — against DiPilot 100 in China. Same badge, same silhouette, one tenth of the designation, and no lidar at any price.
The autonomy
DiPilot 10 is radar and camera, and BYD is upfront about what it does: adaptive cruise, traffic-jam assist, lane centring, traffic-sign recognition, intelligent speed limiting, blind-spot monitoring, cross-traffic alert with braking, autonomous emergency braking, and fatigue and distraction warnings. That is a complete, modern Level 2 set, and Euro NCAP's 2025 five-star result — 87 per cent adult, 93 per cent child, 79 per cent safety assist — says it works. What it does not include is any navigate-on-autopilot, anything hands-free, or a lidar.
The Chinese car has all three. That is the whole story of BYD outside China, and the Sealion 7 is where it costs the most, because this is where the money is. An Excellence AWD is £57,290. At that price a Tesla Model Y comes with FSD Supervised available and a hands-off-adjacent experience its owners argue about daily; a Cadillac buyer gets Super Cruise on 750,000 miles of mapped road. The Sealion 7 buyer gets traffic-jam assist. You are paying luxury-segment money for a mainstream-segment driver assistance, from the company that put lidar on a £10,000 hatchback at home.
None of which makes it a bad car. It makes it a car whose autonomy story stops at the border, and the higher up the range you go, the louder that silence gets.
"DiPilot 10 against DiPilot 100. BYD is not hiding the gap — it is right there in the product name, for anyone who thinks to ask what the number means."
What we're watching
- European type approval for God's Eye. Until BYD seeks it, every BYD sold here is a generation behind its own home-market cars.
- Whether the Excellence trim ever justifies its price on driver assistance, or stays a leather-and-head-up-display upgrade.
- Euro NCAP's separate assisted-driving grading — the Atto 3 was rated Not Recommended before BYD fixed it under public pressure.
Spec sheet — BYD Sealion 7 (2026, Europe)
The ai.cars verdict
- A genuinely fast, well-equipped Model Y rival: 390 kW, 502 km, 24-minute charging, 520 litres of boot.
- The world's fastest mass-production motor at 23,000 rpm, in a car costing less than an Escalade IQ's options list.
- Its driver assistance is DiPilot 10 — competent Level 2, no navigate-on-autopilot, no hands-free, no lidar.
- China's Sealion 07 runs DiPilot 100 with a roof lidar and city navigate-on-autopilot. Same car, different brain.
- Verdict: buy it for the drivetrain and the space. At £57,290 the autonomy gap is the most expensive thing about it.
How does it stack up? Compare the Sealion 7 with the Tesla Model Y, or build your own comparison.
