BYD will hold a pre-sale event of the Seal DM-i at the Chengdu auto show on August 25, with the model targeting the RMB 200,000 to RMB 250,000 market.

(Image credit: BYD)

BYD will begin pre-sales this Friday of the plug-in hybrid variant of the Seal sedan, which saw its first production cars roll off the line a month ago.

BYD will hold a pre-sale event of the Seal DM-i at the Chengdu auto show on August 25 starting at 2:30 pm Beijing time, according to a poster it posted on Weibo today.

The Seal DM-i will build a new landscape in the mid-size sedan market, BYD said.

This year's Chengdu auto show will begin on Friday, August 25 and run through September 3, with August 25 as media day.

The show will be held at the Western China International Expo City, with BYD's booth located in Hall 3, H301.

The Seal DM-i was originally the Chaser 07, which debuted on April 18, the first day of the Shanghai auto show. BYD said at the time that the model would start at 200,000 yuan ($27,440) to 250,000 yuan, with an expected launch date in the third quarter.

The BYD Seal, which initially went on sale in China on July 29, 2022, is seen as one of the strongest rivals to Tesla's Model 3 in the country, and was previously only offered in a battery electric vehicle (BEV) version.

BYD rebranded the Chaser 07 as the Seal DM-i on July 14, seemingly hoping to capitalize on the Seal's greater popularity.

The Seal DM-i is a B+ sedan with length, width and height of 4,980 millimeters, 1,890 millimeters and 1,495 millimeters, respectively, and a wheelbase of 2,900 millimeters, according to BYD's previous announcement.

For comparison, the BYD Seal BEV has a length, width and height of 4,800 mm, 1,875 mm, 1,460 mm and a wheelbase of 2,920 mm.

The Seal DM-i is offered in two range variants with NEDC pure electric ranges of 121 km and 200 km respectively.

The first Seal DM-i production vehicles rolled off the production line on July 19 at BYD's manufacturing base in Zhengzhou, Henan province in central China, the local Henan Daily previously reported.

BYD's Zhengzhou base has a planned capacity to produce hundreds of thousands of new energy vehicles (NEVs) annually, and the Seal DM-i is expected to have a monthly production capacity of up to 30,000 when it goes into operation, the report said, citing a BYD executive.

($1 = RMB 7.2875)

BYD sees 1st production cars of Seal DM-i roll off line