“The Seal U doesn’t have a great towing capacity. In two-wheel drive form, it can only manage a braked trailer of 750kg, while the 4×4 is rated to pull up to 1,300kg. That’s not much for owners who want to pull a decent-sized trailer or caravan, so they’ll be better served by the Ford Kuga PHEV, as this manages up to 2,100kg.” – Shane Wilkinson, senior content editor.

While BYD is still a relative newcomer to the UK market, it’s been building cars in China for decades. The Seal U benefits from this experience, as well as sharing parts with other models in the firm’s current line-up.

Euro NCAP tested the Seal U in 2023, and the car earned a five-star safety rating. It had strong scores across the board, while standard equipment includes front and rear cross-traffic alert, blind-spot detection, lane-departure prevention, adaptive cruise control and three sets of Isofix child-seat mounts. 

The Seal U was marked especially highly for its assistance systems, and better still, the firm’s engineers have tweaked some of these features to be easier to turn off and less intrusive than their applications in the other BYD models we’ve tested.

BYD has plenty of room for improvement in the Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, though, as it wound up in a disastrous 30th place out of 31 in brands in the best manufacturer rankings. The only carmaker to put on an even worse performance was MG.

• Best buy: BYD Seal U DM-i Comfort

The mid-level Comfort trim is our pick of the bunch because it brings a larger battery and some useful additional kit for a modest outlay. It doesn’t have four-wheel drive, but this is difficult to justify in a vehicle intended for on-road use.

BYD Seal U alternatives

The BYD Seal U arrives in a market awash with SUVs of many shapes and sizes, and there are even many plug-in hybrid and hybrid SUVs to choose from for low running costs. However, with its mix of generous exterior dimensions and attractively low price, the Seal U attracts rivals from various classes.

For instance, in terms of interior space, the BYD is closely matched to established plug-in models such as the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4 and Ford Kuga.

Yet consider the car’s pricing and the list of competitors is stretched to include the Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, which both have plug-in options, as well as more traditionally-powered machines such as the Nissan Qashqai and Skoda Karoq.

Two lines of shortcuts are located across the top and bottom of the display to help you navigate the system, with the bottom row dedicated to the climate system. The temperature controls are sliding items as found on other VW Group models, and they flank a volume control. They are still a bit tricky to use, even though they are now illuminated, with the volume function being much easier to operate via the steering wheel.

There’s a digital dashboard that offers four different display modes, although some options bury the speedometer in the corner of the layout. This isn’t an issue in cars fitted with the head-up display, but you might want to switch to a setting that makes it more prominent, our favourite one being the large central rev counter with the speedo in the centre. 

There are four USB-C sockets in the cabin – two up front, two in the rear – while a wireless charging pad is also fitted across the range.

“The Terramar’s cabin looks smart and features plenty of tech, and we’re glad that physical buttons have been fitted to the steering wheel, rather than haptic controls. If you’re not a fan of speed-limit warnings, it’s simple enough to press a button on the wheel, then scroll to the alert and deactivate it.” – Dean Gibson, senior test editor. 

The sole body option for the Terramar is a five-door compact SUV – there’s no coupe-SUV alternative, but we don’t think you need it because the standard model looks pretty sporty already. There’s room for five inside, while a sliding rear bench offers the option to prioritise passenger or boot space.

Dimensions and size

The Terramar is larger than the Cupra Formentor, but it’s not quite as long as the platform-sharing Volkswagen Tiguan, although both have a similar wheelbase. A lower roof line gives the Terramar a sportier look, but this doesn’t come at the expense of interior headroom.

Seats & passenger space

All versions of the Terramar feature sporty looking front seats with wide wings. However, unlike in some dedicated sports cars, these are broad enough so that they feel as if they wrap around you, but aren’t tight, and deliver good comfort as a result. Lower-spec cars have cloth upholstery, while in the mid-range there’s a Dinamica microfibre finish, and top-spec cars get burgundy leather with copper stitching that looks more attractive than it sounds.

Meanwhile, there are four levels for the regenerative braking including a very firm ‘strong’ mode that allows for one-pedal driving – which is great in town – and an adaptive ‘intelligent’ mode for those who aren’t used to regen yet and just want to ‘set it and forget it’.

Interestingly, the new GLB is able to receive data from other suitably equipped Mercedes on the road and will warn the driver of any potholes or large imperfections in the road coming up, which it does so by sporadically saying the word “bump”. If you still go over one, this can send a noticeable thump into the cabin, but the suspension does a very good job of absorbing the impact. 

The car does fidget slightly too, but overall it feels like a composed SUV. Combined with only a small amount of road and wind noise penetrating into the cabin, the GLB is a soothing and calm place, as you’d expect a family car or indeed a Mercedes to be.

If you get bored of the quiet, the EV also gets ‘sound worlds’ to accompany the driving experience with some of the most bizarre names imaginable including Vivid Flux, Roaring Pulse and our personal favourite, Granular Fuzz, which makes it sound like you’re being chased by a swarm of angry hornets, which is sure to amuse your passengers. 

The new Mercedes GLB is on sale now, with prices starting from £42,070 for the hybrid version and £46,100 for the EV. That makes it more expensive than compact premium SUVs including the BMW X1 and Audi Q3, but they don’t have seven seats or full-hybrid tech as standard. The same goes for the similarly sized X3 and Q5, which both start from over £53k.

The GLB Electric’s most direct rival is the Tesla Model Y 7-Seater, but that costs nearly £55k and has a very similar range of 372 miles.  

Prices for a fully loaded GLB can reach around £60k, which puts the new EV in the same price bracket as the larger, even more advanced Mercedes GLC Electric or BMW iX3 that offer more range, too. Picking between them simply comes down to whether you really need seven seats or not, but if you do, the Mercedes GLB is a compelling option.