BYD Atto 2 DM-i 2026 Test Drive

0:00 Hello guys and welcome back to a new video. Here we are today with a brand new BYD Auto 2. This is DMI, the plug-in hybrid version which is brand new 2026. It's one of the most excited plug-in hybrid on the market. It's one of the most affordable at least in Europe. Uh and it's very interesting. It has one kind of unique hybrid system. So, usually plug-in hybrid cars are built, you know, like you have an internal combustion engine platform and then you build a plug-in hybrid over it. This car, it's like an electric platform and you you build over it an uh plug-in hybrid, which is really, really interesting. What that's supposed to mean, it's exactly the same as you have on the Nissan E Power where you have

0:45 that internal combustion engine acting like a generator. Exactly. This is what's happening right now. Here we have a very powerful electric motor that power the wheel most of the time. And then you have an internal combustion engine, a petrol engine that act like a generator most of the time at least at low speeds under 100 km per hour over 100 km/h when you need more power or when the car think it's more efficient to drive the wheels with internal combustion engine then the car will drive the wheels and I will explain you in this video and I will show you exactly how it works. It's a very very smart system. But before we go forward, before we start driving, probably wondering why I start inside because it's super windy outside. It's very very very very windy. You can see also the trees moving. And also this will make

1:32 the sound insulation test suffer a little bit because we go on the highway. So there it's also more windy. So yeah, take this into consideration. Now I have the top of the range version with me. You can see right here we have the panoramic glass roof as well. We have this super gorgeous interior with those beautiful seats. I really love the seats in white with perforated areas. We have heated seats in the front, heated steering wheel for the top of the range version. It looks really, really good. The interior also wireless charging here 50 vats. And let me start. Here is the star stop engine button. You can see it has a nice kind of Chinese animation when it start with that cool relaxing sound. I really like that. And then you have plenty of physical button. The good part is that in comparison with the electric version, it's kind of changed

2:18 this area here. But otherwise, everything is the same excepting the fact that this autodmi have Google built in. So now you use the Google map which work fantastic man. Uh so by start a collaboration with Google now. So you will see Google built in here in the apps. You can see the Google assistants, the play store. So you can install apps like YouTube and so on which is super super cool. So that's a great great plus for this DMI. And you can see also now new the map here on the screen which is gorgeous the Google map and you have all those information regarding the charging stations regarding all those point of interest. So yeah this is this is becoming one of the best multimedia

3:04 system on the market and it has a good hardware. It's moving fast. Anyway, otherwise you have the driving modes here. Switch from where you can change between four different driving modes. Echo, normal, sport, and snow mode. Every time you change the driving mode, the car will react differently in terms of acceleration. And in terms of steering wheel, it can be stiffer on sport and a little bit uh softer on the yeah other driving modes. Uh auto hold function, hazard light button, very well placed. And here from this button, you can switch between EV and electric mode. you can see on the screen. So, you can drive only in electric mode as long as you have enough energy in the battery. And you can see right here how much you have and you can see also down here how much you have, which is great. And it can see also in kilometers. You can see

3:49 also in percentage, however you want. Uh I will explain you in a second. Plus, the good part is that you can save the energy for later. For example, we have 56% right now. And you say, man, I want to save 50% of the energy for later. You put it like that. And then the car the engine will use you know to produce energy to send to the battery or to send to the internal to the motor you know electric motor so that you don't use the energy from the battery. So it's it's going to be used all the time. So the petrol engine will run all the time. The big advantage of the petrol engine it's a 1.5 L 4 cylinders inline petrol engine. It's building house by BYD actually BYD building house everything also the electric motor also the petrol engine the batteries everything even the

4:37 windows even a lot a lot of stuff so most of the car it's built by them and the cool part is that the internal combustion engine it's one of the most efficient in the world it's 43% efficiency for the thermal engine is very good as a comparison a normal internal combustion engine have an efficiency of around 35 38 8% Toyota have around 41 which is the best the hybrid some hybrids versions but yeah this one have 43 so it's kind of the most most most efficient anyway let me give you some technical data I will explain you a little bit more as we go the car start at around €25,600 with discount for the entry- level version and the boost version which I

5:22 have top of the range version normally is 30,000 but we have a discount now at PY, they have a discount, €28,000, which is a great price. 16-in rims, we have 17in rims because we have the top of the range version. The power of the car, 212 horsepower for the top of the range version. And the entry- level 166 horsepower. Also very important, both of them come front-wheel drive. Both of them come with automatic transmission, ECVT or DHT, a special transmission for those hybrid systems. And both of them interesting they have the same power of the electric motor 197 horsepower and the petrol engine have the same power of course 98 horsepower. So I guess they are limited in terms of power software

6:08 limited. Now when it comes to battery it's a big difference because the top of the range version have an 18 kWh battery LFP battery by LFP battery and the entry- level version have a 7.8 kilowatth LFP battery. That's a big difference when it comes to CO2 emission. You have 41 g on top range and you have on the entry- level version 6902 g. Otherwise, the range only in electric mode. You can go for the entry- level version 40 kilm only in electric. And for the top of the range version, you can reach up to 90 km only in electric mode. And the range of the car can go up to 1,000 kilometers, which is pretty good. Consumption around 5.1 liter. We will test it in this video and I will show you something really cool.

6:55 180 km perh is the top speed around 7.5 seconds 0 to 100 otherwise 16 cm ground clearance turning circle 10.6 m and it comes with independent personal suspension on the front end torsion beam semi-independent on the rear. Otherwise the same size as on the electric version uh with small small changes on the bumpers. Now we have two types of regenerative brakes. Standard and high. We will use high. But standard mean when you release the acceleration the car will mostly roll. It's just a little bit of recuperation. High it mean more recuperation when you release the acceleration. I will leave it like to let's say 55% because I want to start in electric and

7:40 then I want to show you how the petrol engine is running. Or maybe you know what maybe just leave it to 34% and I will explain you as we go in the video. Charging here. Uh here we can reset the consumption of course before we start driving and I will show you it has a great graphic with a lot of information regarding the consumption. If we go to driving we can go to drive control we drive steering wheel on comfort or sport how you like it brake comfort or sport. Sport mean they are a little bit so quicker comfort is more smooth when you're braking otherwise comfort driving no cabin perception here you have radar so you deactivate this is reading your face it tell you if you're tired take a break fatigue driving warning distraction driving warning all that

8:25 stuff we don't need it from here up the good part is that you can deactivate the speed limit warning very simple like that and then you have the adas with all the great stuff here the cool part is that it's something New here this one cruise control speed by accelerator that mean you drive 60 and then you have autopilot then you go to 80 accelerate manually and then it's hold to 80 which is cool something new and then overtaking prevention inside overtaking prevention doesn't allow you to overtake on the right side which I will deactivate basically and ECC uh it's intelligent cruise control and adaptive cruise control We will use intelligent cruise control because this is this lane assist and it hold also the distance

9:11 between the car in front. It's a very smart system. Here you have all other safety features which we will talk in the review video. So yeah definitely check out that video. Now driving we set already going to uh energy. So here we can see the graphic and then if you go to let me show you the navigation. So, if you go to navigation, we can set, I don't know, let's find a restaurant or something like that. You can see also the ratings. And it's loading extremely quick. And you can see also how it looks here. The cool part is that you can also change the view here. If you don't want the map, you can see it like that with what happened around the car with lane assist when you activate autopilot. It's really nice. And then you can see the timer if you want 0 to 100 media or even

9:57 here back. Now on the left side you can also customize I mean not customize but you can also see on the left side the consumption and other information. You can see the fuel consumption, the charging capacity. Here you see the tire pressure, the temperature in the tires and here you see the consumption and a little bit lower how much battery we have. If you hold it like that for a few seconds it will reset the consumption. Exactly what we want. Climatic system will be on level one just like that for the test. 22° and let's drive it. Here is the stalk behind the steering wheel. You can go in reverse and drive. Very simple. I will show you also the 360° camera which I think is just amazing. It's one of the best 360° camera and you can activate it from here from the steering wheel. Here you can activate

10:44 autopilot and here you can set autopilot. And here on the right side you have the telephone and then you have that button voice command. and then the buttons to customize uh you know the volume and the uh media. Anyway, I will switch to navigation in the front there to see it like that. Now, when you're driving the car, most of the time you will drive at least at low speeds, you will drive only with electric motor. You will feel like you're driving an electric car. This is basically an electric car with a generator. But at high speeds it will drive also or will will be drived also by the internal combustion engine helped by the electric motor. Uh but mostly

11:30 because it's more efficient like that it will use the internal combustion engine. So that's something to to keep in mind. So ah by the way you hear this this is the this sound strangely enough this sound is the turning indicator. It's one of the most strange maybe different or one of the most unique turning indicator sound that I heard. Look look how much wind is here. It's super windy super dusty outside. That's why I didn't start outside. But you can see the car in the review video. You can see the car in the in the other videos that I have on my channel. If you want to see from outside, we talk about everything outside. Uh in this video, we

12:15 will focus on the driving blind spot technology in the corner. Yeah, quite quite crazy uh sound when you turn the indicators here. This button, you can activate the camera. So, if you go around the curve and you don't want to scratch the rims, for example, you can activate it from here. And you can check the curve and the rims and the side. And you can check it on this side. You can check it here. You can check it front. And you can make it transparent. And if you even if you go like that, you can see even better from above both of them, both rims or rear rims. How cool is that, man? I mean, it's so cool. This kind of 360° camera. It's really awesome. And it's definitely deserve to pay extra. The difference between entry- level version and top of the range version, it's around 2,500,

13:00 something like that. And you get 360° camera, heated seats, heated steering wheel, panoramic glass roof, those white super nice seats and uh electric folding mirrors and more and more. I don't remember all but I think it really deserved to to take the step to the top of the range version. Ah, and bigger battery of course and much more range. So if we go now to the energy, you will see right here what happened with energy in real time. I will leave it like that. This is the electric motor, petrol engine. And then this is the battery. Now, it doesn't come with double glass. It's simple glass. So, we will test also the sound insulation. In the city, it seems to be quite fine. I mean, here it's windy. There are cars. I I noticed and I drove it yesterday before yesterday at low speeds. In the city,

13:47 it's no problem. I mean, the sound insulation is quite good. We will see also on the highway at high speeds. Right now, also the good part is that everything feel linear. The transmission it's really smooth and silent. And also very important and I want to point out that the petrol engine it's running always at a certain RPMs is never to struggle up or to struggle down you know. So because it's acting it's staying between perfect RPMs in order to give you the best efficiency. Uh you're not going to hear it too loud. uh it's always going to to run super efficient and it will last longer in time because it will always always run at certain

14:34 RPMs. So uh that's another big advantage of this type of um full hybrid is the fact that is not going to be struggle by driving the wheels like a normal. Thank you. And you have also plenty of power the light look at is the hazard light button. It's very well placed. Now, in terms of power, you have more than enough power. Right now, we are driving in echo mode if I'm not wrong. Let's see. Yeah, now we are in echo. If you go to sport to normal, it's more aggressive. If you go to sport mode, accelerate now the petrol engine kick in. When I press acceleration harder, I'm like 100 km/h. And you see the petrol engine. It's on, but you barely hear it. I just

15:19 hear it when it start a little bit. But now now it stopped. But then you don't hear it too much. You will see it's it's very very well uh made in from from the point of view of sound. It's much more silent than uh you will you will find on on a CVT classic CVT for example on uh on Toyota. Now we are driving in electric turning circle 10.6 m. It's doing great. You have a tall driving position. And I really love that on this car because you sit very very tall. Uh so you see everything around you. Great visibility around the windows. From here we activate the cruise control and you accelerate for example you go to 80. And now look at this. The car is holding 280. And then if you go from here you

16:05 can go higher. And you have this new feature. So if I accelerate a little bit more to 90 free for example. And then all you have to do like 90 just go up and it's holding around here. And now the car stay between the lanes. Accelerate, break, keep the distance. You can go also to now it comes 100. So you can go to 100 just like that. And the car stay between the lanes. Accelerate, keep the distance. We can switch this so you can see also the lanes and the cars around you. So you can see exactly what's going on around the car. And it works very, very, very good. I test it also yesterday on the highway. It warned you from time to time to put your hands on the steering wheel. But I noticed that this level two semiautopilot, it works very good. Right now we are

16:52 driving only in electric. You can see only with electric motor. Even though we have 100 km per hour, as long as you have energy, the car is capable to drive only in electric also for uh for high speeds. It can drive also in parallel, in series. It has all kind of combination. Uh the biggest advantage is that you can also charge it. And uh the cool part is that if you don't charge the car, that's why they didn't add a faster charging because if you don't charge the car, this car will act like a proper full hybrid. The the generator can charge the car, can send the energy to the electric motor. So you don't have to necessarily charge the car. charging it's a bonus but if you don't charge it the car can act also very efficient the

17:39 way it's the the way it's built make it to be also very efficient now the car is still driving you can see right now stays between the lanes accelerate break keep the distance now the car in front it's gone my car will accelerate until it's reaching the new car you can also set the distance between your car and the car in front I like to choose the biggest isest distance so the car have time to react act and you can see it's still drive itself. I just have my hands here. The cool part is that the car tell you how much energy you use in electric, how much energy you use in petrol and then it it make a calculation and it tell you the total consumption until now which is awesome. Not many plug-in hybrid give you this number. So great job UD with this one. Now I can avoid

18:26 this truck and then still when I go back the car stays between the lanes. So that's nice. I mean, I can avoid it. And then it's still activated. So, if you want to deactivate this system, you just press the brake and the autopilot, it's deactivated. Now, because it's super windy outside, I can already hear some wind from the left side hitting the car. Uh, but normally, we have, by the way, 17in rims, winter tires. So, they are a little bit noisier uh normally than the normal summer tires. Here also, the road is bad, so it's normal, but we will see on the other side. Otherwise, what I like very much on the car is that stability on the straight line. It's very good. So, it feels very stable at uh long distances. That's a good advantages. Wear is not so fun to drive

19:15 it. I will tell you in a second. It's on the twisty road on the curves. Uh the handlings can be I mean it's not a sporty car. It's a car made to move from point A to point B on the highway in the city in a comfortable way, in a normal way. Uh so not a sporty and dynamic car. That's for sure. That's something to keep in mind. So you can see there now it's recuperating the energy when you go downhill and you're using the energy when you accelerate. And you can see how nice it shows you also the graphic right here in the front of the of the screen. And now we are in let's go back to to echo mode. Now the car is recuperating

20:00 the energy. The steering wheel in sport mode it's a little bit stiffer. In echo mode it's a little bit softer. Now in the curves is doing fine in a comfortable way. Um it has a little bit of leaning in corners. So it's not super sporty, super dynamic. Um, but you know, if you drive it normally, as long as you drive normal, uh, the car will do a great job. So, now we can go in sport. So, we can push it a little bit harder around here around the corners. So, you can see as well, it's very silent. The pedals feel good. And it's also nimble, easy to drive. The steering wheel in sport, it's a little

20:46 bit stiffer. Now accelerate. You can see the petrol engine. It's on, but you barely hear it. You see how silent it is. Wow. I'm I'm impressed. I'm impressed. I'm impressed how good they managed to to build. And you need power. It's a frontwheel drive, so expect a little bit of slip ring and losing control when you push it harder. You hear the engine, man. It's so silent. It's so silent because it's running. It's not connected, you know, always. So, it's running like like on the perfect RPMs. It doesn't try to struggle when you press the acceleration on some cars. It's like it's trying the best, you know, uh like a normal internal combustion engine. But this

21:31 one, because it's not necessarily needing that much energy, it run at lower RPMs. Otherwise, yeah. Uh, I think I can I I cover almost every look at this acceleration. It's very smooth. Very smooth. Very linear. You hear the engine. Now I push it really hard and we get uphill. So you hear a little bit the engine revs on, but not too loud. Not too loud for the way uh I accelerate. Not too loud. And then now it's basically running, but it's running at lower RPM. It's running in a very

22:19 silent way. So you barely hear it. And now it's also moving the wheels because now it's the most efficient to drive by the petrol engine. Right now at this kind of speed, 120, 130. It's more efficient to be and you can see it's just driving only by petrol engine right now because it's more efficient like that. The car knows how it's more efficient. But if you need power, man, you have the power to crossass without any problem even at those speed. What I'm the most impressed it's how stable is the car. Of course, I hear some wind. Maybe it's because it's windy as well. So, the wind noise can be improved and the sound insulation a little bit. But I'm so impressed by how

23:04 good the car it stays, how cruising speed, it's it's lovely. I mean, cruising speed, mid, straight line, highway, high speed, it stays very good. Good visibility, uh, good comfort on the seats. Suspension are well set up for this type of uh, driving. So, great job, great job for cruising. It's a, it's a great, great car. And the system is so smart that it's switching automatically in the most efficient way. Now you see we drive 17 106 105 and the car is driving in uh in uh electric mode and the petrol engine is off. So the petrol engine is running only at higher speeds as long as you have enough energy. If you don't have energy then will run more and more

23:53 depending on the situation. But it's a great configuration the way they set it up. Now the recuperation, it's on high. If I put it on standard, the car is mostly rolling, but it's still recuperating. Look at that. Minus 7 kilovat. So it's still recuperating. If you go to high, it goes a little bit higher to minus 19 kilovat. Look. So it's more than double in terms of power of recuperation. And yeah, in terms of steering wheel and acceleration, you already saw that. But man, it's so easy to drive. It's it's great that you have great visibility around the and you know for €28,000 top of the range or 30,000 normal price with discount 28,000 it's amazing price for what this car offer it's a really really good price blind spot technology

24:40 great view so you can go here you can see in the roundabout you can go pretty quick. So you can drive also a little bit dynamic. Now the fun part, the interesting part is suspension. Front suspension, it's independent person. Great front suspension. The rear suspension, it's a torsion beam semi-independent. That's supposed to mean what that's supposed to mean. Uh it's not as good as the front suspension. And you can definitely feel that over big bumps. When you drive it normally, like on these streets with a little bit of humps and bumps, you don't feel it. I mean, it's it's fine. It's comfortable. When you go over big bumps,

25:26 you will notice that the rear end, it's a little bit stiffer, you know, like uh exactly. And I will show you a little bit forward. Uh if the suspension on the rear were also multil-link, were independent, man. That that that would be really fine. Uh but I'm not complaining. Most of the time, we don't have big bumps, so it's it's quite fine. Uh setup. Yeah, it's not a sporty car. That's the thing. I mean, don't expect to have a sporty great handling feeling. Just expect to have a normal car that everybody need to move from point A to point B in a super comfortable way, super efficient way. Um, and safe way. Oh, I like it. I like it. I

26:12 like the way it drives. The material quality, the price is good. Everything seems to be super fine. Great. Ah, if you want to see the map, I can show you also the map here so you can see how it looks. Um, the cool thing is that here we are. Look at this. You see front it's soft and nice and then back it's a little bit stiffer. I I hope you understand what I wanted. I hope you understand what I mean. So, in general in general Yeah. Maybe let me take this out. Put another point just like that. It's so quick, man. The navigation is so quick and everything is placed very

26:58 well. So, ergonomy, it's good. You have plenty of buttons to change different modes. Let's go back to echo mode. Super simple from here. You can feel it. You don't have to look at it. Yeah. I don't know. I like it. And I love the fact that they bring this collaboration with Google. like Google built in with all the apps from the Play Store and the Google map. It's awesome. I I don't know this this turning indicator it's it's a little bit strange sometimes. I need a little bit of time to get used with it because in the beginning you have the impression that you have other warnings. So I was like what what what warning the seat belt or what? It's no it's just a turning indicator. It sounds like that and I check but you cannot change it.

27:46 I think they can do that through a software up update or something like if they want but yeah it's not a big deal. It's just that it is the way it is. But anyway, in general uh I like the car and also in the city around turning circle around roundabouts turning circle is good. Um, for the size of the car, visibility is very good. You can see everything around you. You have everything you need in the car. I don't feel like I need something. So, driving the car, you don't feel like you need something extra. I don't know. I really don't feel like to to something to say like, man, if the car would have that would be great. You

28:31 see now here it's kind of bumpy. Not big bumps, just a little bit bumpy. And it's fine. And also the suspension a little bit stiffer as I said a little bit stiffer in the back but it's fine. I mean it's overall it's it's it's normal. They have to set it up like that otherwise on the highway highspeed curves will not be so stable because it doesn't have adaptive suspension right. Uh but in general it's fine. Also you can access the cameras from here. Very simple like that. And you can park without any problem. You can find the parking lots. Yeah, I think I think this car should have a real success to be honest. I

29:17 really think that because the car it's it's quite good, man. Let's park around here. So, you have the stock, you go in reverse. The car is great. It has a good price. So I think I think they would have they will have a real success with this car and they have also this discount which is great. You can see also the centimeters distance between the obstacle on the rear. You can see the side here if I park well the front other side and even this one there you can see it's cool. Put it in park just like that. Let me show you the consumption. So the consumption was like this 12.8 kilowatt hour plus 2.6 liter in petrol

30:04 and equal the total consumption 6.3 lit. So they calculate for you the total consumption. I didn't drive economical. So yeah it is what it is. Um I didn't drive only in echo. Maybe I will do a test only in echo to see what's the the consumption will be. But we can see also on the energy here energy consumption. You can see the graphic with how was the consumption you know and you can see also on the last for example 169 kilome 3.8 4.4 4 kilowatt hour. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. So, that was the test drive, guys, with Auto2 DMI plug-in hybrid. From my point of view, a very interesting car if

30:50 you're not ready to go full electric. This car might be one of the best car for you for the moment. If we think about the petrol, the diesel, the oil, that's more expensive with this war. If this war will be extended for a few more months, the more it's extended the war, the worse is for the gas and for the price of the petrol and diesel. And if we have the possibility to charge it from the sun, which is free. And if you have a, you know, a house with yard, you can put solar panels, wind turbine, you can also install uh for the house, small ones. Uh why not? I mean, it's free energy. Why would you pay a lot of money for diesel and gas and wait to come from miles away, you know, when you can

31:35 create yourself or you can have electricity in any country in the world, in any place in the world. So yeah, think about that. Anyway, if you're not ready for full electric, this might be an amazing amazing car. It's such a smart hybrid system. It's such a smart and you feel like you're driving super smooth and nice and clean and in the city you will be super clean. Anyway, that was the video. I hope you enjoy it. Don't miss out the full review with the same car. Thank you for watching. Stay safe and we see you soon in the next one. Bye, guys. Snow fallow

32:21 I want to