BYD Song Plus DM-i

Published · Researched 2026-09-21

The BYD Song Plus DM-i is one car with three names and two personalities. In China it's the Song Plus DM-i, the default family SUV, a sales monster. In Europe it's the Seal U DM-i. In Australia it's the Sealion 6. Same plug-in hybrid system underneath: a 1.5-liter engine, a front electric motor, and a battery good for roughly 100–150 km of electric driving before the petrol engine wakes up.

Here's the personality split that matters. In China, owners talk about it the way people talk about a good refrigerator — it just works, it's cheap to run, and a full tank plus a full charge does the fabled 1,000 km road trip without stopping. Measured owner data puts the smaller-battery version at 98 km of real electric range and 3.8 L/100km combined. That's not a brochure figure; that's owners with fuel logs. The bigger battery does about 135 km real. For a family SUV that costs Corolla money in China, that's the whole pitch, and it's real.

In export markets the pitch is "a PHEV for HEV money," and it mostly holds. The Australian Sealion 6 starts at $48,990 AUD — thousands under a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid — while giving you 80–90 km of genuine electric commuting. One Australian press test saw 5.3 L/100km after the battery ran out, which still beats the RAV4. An Australian owner named Garry fills up every five weeks and tows a 1,700 kg trailer with his, reporting "it handles like a dream!" Five-star ANCAP safety, a free home charger for early buyers, vehicle-to-load for the campsite. On paper it's a heist.

Now the part where I spend your money carefully. The Australian press is blunt about the driving: "unsettled ride, soggy handling," steering "so light you get very little feedback," a grainy reversing camera, a small-ish boot, and Giti comfort tires that reviewers reckon aren't up to Australian roads. None of this makes it a bad car — it makes it a soft, comfort-first family bus that doesn't like being hurried. Know that going in. The sharper concern is the export-market support pattern: a Filipino owner reports spare-parts waits of three to six months and an electrical fault at six months. That's one anecdote with an axe to grind, but it rhymes with the parts-delay complaints in the Australian 500-review analysis.

And then there's the number that needs a flag on it. A YouTube video claims the Song Plus plug-in hybrid logged 1,182 complaints in a single month in China, mostly fuel-system related, citing a Chinese complaint aggregator. I could not verify the aggregator's methodology, the video's framing is sensational, and I'd be lying if I presented it as settled fact. What I can say: it's the one dark cloud in an otherwise sunny reliability picture, and it's worth watching — not worth panicking over. Related housekeeping: the same video's "most complained-about Seal plug-in hybrid" is the Chinese-market Seal 06/07 DM-i sedan, a different car from both this one and the Seal EV. BYD's naming department owes everyone an apology.

Who's it for? The commuter who will actually plug it in every night. That's the entire value equation — run it on electricity for the daily grind and petrol for the holidays, and the numbers are unbeatable. Who should skip it: anyone who won't charge it. An uncharged plug-in hybrid is just a heavy petrol SUV carrying a dead battery around, and at that point the RAV4 Hybrid is the better car.

The social pulse: warm and pragmatic. Nobody's writing love letters to the Song Plus; they're posting fuel logs and tow reports. It's the rationalist's choice, argued about only by people who've never owned one.

Bottom line from the owners: charge it daily and it's the cheapest family motoring on sale. Treat it like a normal petrol car and you've bought the wrong car. On model years: the sweet spot is the 2025 DM 5.0 cars (launched July 2024) — the newest hybrid system, ~1,500 km of combined range, and price-war pricing already baked in. In Australia, the Sealion 6 only exists as a 2024–2025 car, so buy one a year old and let someone else eat the first depreciation. Skip the 2021 first-year DM-i cars — pre-facelift, oldest software, and that's where the early fuel-system complaints live.