BYD Atto 2 review

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Fast-growing Chinese EV specialist takes aim at one of Europe's key growth segments

The current era of high-rise electric superminis is showing no sign of stalling. We now have a class packed with all kinds: premium ones (Volvo EX30); sporty ones (Mini Aceman, Alfa Romeo Junior); avant-garde stylish ones (Kia EV2); retro stylish ones (Renault 4, Fiat Grande Panda); and more and more sensible, mid-market, big-volume ones (Ford Puma Gen-E, Vauxhall Mokka, Skoda Epiq, Volkswagen ID Cross). 

What should a brand like BYD do to make its entrant stand out, then? Not much, apparently. The BYD Atto 2 seems to be on a mission simply to blend in. It looks very much like a shrunken BYD Atto 3 – although it also trades on cues obviously borrowed from the likes of the Smart #1 and Mercedes' EQ cars. It’s practical, broadly pleasant, well equipped and inoffensive to use and to drive. 

It’s fine, in other words. Passable. Competitive. One of its maker's nicer, classier small cars, actually. But it isn’t the sort of car you're likely to notice or remember, aiming instead to meet every reasonable expectation without notably exceeding any particular one.

New BYD Atto 2 cars in stock

 BYD Atto 2 1.5 18kWh Boost Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£28,038
 BYD ATTO 2 64.8kWh Comfort Auto 5dr opens in a new tab
£27,999
 BYD Atto 2 64.8kWh Comfort Auto 5dr opens in a new tab
£33,101
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 18kWh Boost Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£28,999
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 7.8kWh Active Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£25,999
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 7.8kWh Active Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£26,320
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 7.8kWh Active Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£25,570
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 18kWh Boost Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£28,600
 BYD Atto 2 1.5 18kWh Boost Auto Euro 6 (s/s) 5dr opens in a new tab
£29,995
View all 121 cars

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DESIGN & STYLING

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BYD ATTO 2 front tracking

Like the Atto 3 and Seal saloon, the Atto 2 sits on BYD's e-Platform 3.0. It features MacPherson-strut suspension at the front and a torsion-beam axle at the rear that has been strategically positioned to maximise boot space. There's also cell-to-body-style battery construction (in one of BYD's trademark 'Blade' LFP packs), which boosts chassis rigidity and enhances interior space, as other manufacturers have more recently learned to their benefit.

The Atto 2 comes in single-motor, front-driven form only, but in a choice of two derivatives (Boost and Comfort) with differing power outputs and battery capacities. 

The Boost gets a 174bhp motor and 51kWh of battery capacity, the Comfort 201bhp and 65kWh. A little puzzlingly, BYD claims the same 7.9sec 0-62mph sprint time for both, but range in the Comfort jumps from 214 to 267 miles on the WLTP lab test, and peak DC rapid-charging speed rises from 82kW to 155kW.

The Comfort's range figure positions the car in a broadly competitive place in a class where a claimed 270 miles is typical, although we are beginning to see compact EVs of roughly this size and price tipping over the 300-mile threshold (Hyundai Ioniq 3, Nissan Leaf). For the £35k that BYD ask for the Comfort model, you can certainly buy a longer-legged EV, especially once models with Electric Car Grant eligibility are taken into account.

The Atto 2 is styled to mimic its big sibling. There are LED headlights and slim daytime-running lights, 'Chinese knot' rear lights incorporated into a full-width light bar, and 17in alloy wheels with a unique design.

Overall, the profile of the car looks a little SUV-generic but not unrecognisable as a BYD. Many of its rivals are more distinctive and interesting to look at.

Measuring 4310mm long, 1830mm wide and 1675mm tall, it's 145mm shorter and a little slimmer than the Atto 3 but actually slightly taller. Its 2620mm wheelbase is usefully longer than many of its rivals', however.

INTERIOR

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BYD Atto 2 review 2025 007

The Atto 2’s interior has the big picture covered. There’s a good-sized, split-level boot, whose capacity is rated at 50 litres greater in the Comfort than in the Boost, for reasons that BYD has yet to explain, but it is an ample size either way.

The second-row seats have enough leg and head room for adults, and plenty of useful storage around them.

The Atto 2 prefers to indicate its efficiency in kWh per 100 miles, yet it's averaged over a rolling 50-mile interval. You can now ‘clear’ the figure it shows and use it as a resettable short-range trip computer of a kind but only until you pass that 50-mile threshold.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

Up front, there’s a matching roomy feel and mostly good comfort and adjustability from the driver’s seat – all except for the non-adjustable integrated-style head restraint, which tends to poke taller drivers annoyingly in the nape of the neck.

Material quality is mixed. There’s plenty of synthetic ‘leather’ trim around the place, and the majority of the car’s fixtures and fittings feel solid and secure. But there are also some dull, hard plastic mouldings and unconvincing material imitations in conspicuous places to mar the overall impression a little – and none of the more eccentric inclusions (guitar-string storage straps, anyone?) of the bigger Atto 3 to lift a pretty drab and unremarkable ambience.

Multimedia system

Every Atto 2 gets an 8.8in digital instrument screen, which is accompanied by a 12.8in infotainment touchscreen. ​It supports over-the-air software updates and is equipped with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and voice command,. The smartphone mirroring connection is a little annoying because it won't connect to your device automatically while your handset is locked. Instead, it needs to be connected manually in advance of every trip.

The large instrument display and infotainment display both have good clarity, but the latter takes some getting used to.

The screen is responsive and suffered no software glitches during our time with it. The Android-based software pleases the eye with soft, light-coloured graphics, but the menu structures are a bit haphazard, and the individual icons around the periphery of the screen are too small and fiddly to hit at arm's length. They also look very similar to each other, making it more challenging to use while driving.

Thankfully, BYD has resisted the temptation to put every secondary control on the touchscreen. There are a number of physical buttons on either side of the gear selector, including for the air-con, audio volume, regenerative braking and windscreen demister.

A quick-access menu for control of the ADAS is accessible with a downward swipe from the top of the screen and can be configured to give reasonably easy access to deactivative the car's lane keeping and speed limit warning alarms. Annoyingly, BYD continues to keep the controls for its driver monitoring system somewhere else, though – buried pretty deeply in the vehicle settings menu. And you'll want to turn it off, because it's an especially sensitive system with a habit of reminding you, in a spoken voice, to look at the road, even when that's already precisely what you're doing.

BYD still isn't on the same level as rivals with the integration of these systems and doesn't offer a 'custom' ADAS mode that allows you to configure the car's mandatory active safety nannies with a couple of quick presses of a physical button. More's the pity, they won't be able to add one of those with a software update, either.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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BYD Atto 2 review 2025 014

The Atto 2 offers four drive modes (Eco, Normal, Sport and Snow), each slightly changing the steering mapping and throttle response.

Generally it’s a pretty easy and agreeable car to drive, although it’s one that much prefers progressive throttle, steering and braking inputs and it certainly doesn't have the kind of grip or traction that would reassure you about its particular suitability for wet and slippery surfaces.

The Boost version is quite lightweight by class standards (1570kg at the kerb), which means its 174bhp motor does the job of hauling it from A to B at a credible pace. A 0-62mph time of 7.9sec is pretty decent. The Comfort version isn't any quicker on paper – and it doesn't really feel that way on the road either, because its extra 15lb ft of torque is offset by its additional 90kg of kerb weight. There is, perhaps, a little more urgency from the Comfort at and around UK motorway speeds, but there are still much sportier EV rivals you could buy.

Both versions accelerate smoothly and progressively, with torque evenly metered out up to about 50mph. If you're hurried with your pedal inputs, the car's 17in wheels can struggle a little bit for purchase at low speeds.

There’s no paddle-shift regen control, however. BYD provides a toggle button instead to flick between Standard and High settings, but it's down next to the start-stop button on the centre console and therefore not that easy to find as you approach bends or junctions.

Conveniently, brake pedal progression is good, so the driving experience doesn't suffer too much from the lack of more conventional regen paddles. Even so, closer manual control would still be preferable - so that you knew you could switch it all the way off at times, and also all the way up into a one-pedal mode.

Just as the car's driver monitoring software doesn't seem very sophisticated, so its adaptive cruise control system has some annoying habits that become apparent on a motorway. Having slowed for traffic merging into your lane ahead, it's oddly slow to resume your set speed. It's also very easily triggered to slow the car by vehicles in adjacent lanes - and sometimes by vehicles that aren't even there. This is another area where BYD has work to do to catch up with better-established global car makers.

RIDE & HANDLING

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BYD Atto 2 review 2025 017

BYD’s engineers pride themselves on the Atto 2’s manoeuvrability in tight spaces and they have a point: the Atto 2's 10.5m turning circle is smaller than plenty of rivals'.

Handling, steering and body control are respectable but each leaves a little to be desired. This is clearly aiming to be one of the B-SUV class's more comfortable propositions, but the body control feels a little wayward and underdamped on country roads; traction is a little scant away from junctions; and the steering is vulnerable to diversion by drive forces, and otherwise feels somewhat over-assisted and anodyne. Opting for an upper-tier Comfort model doesn't really address any of this, because while other top-grade versions come with bigger wheels, the Atto 2 doesn't.

Around town, the car has a calm, if slightly wallowy ride. Its steering is typically light and feels quite remote. You don’t really notice this in town and below 40mph. But on motorways and faster country roads, the steering starts to feel light and a little disconnected, the ride becomes unsettled over long undulations, and there’s some heave and a want of control to the way the car pitches and rolls around tighter bends.

Wind noise is also a bit of an issue at higher speeds. The large door mirrors seem to create more aerodynamic drag than the engineers bargained for. Road noise is quite well subdued, though.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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BYD ATTO 2 front tracking

BYD claims the Atto 2’s powertrain is 89% energy efficient and that the standard heat pump will extend its range by 10% to 20% in winter months compared with rivals that don't have one. Most new EVs, even in this class, are increasingly now including them, however.

On our mixed test route, we saw close to 5.0mpkWh from the Boost on slower B-roads, dropping to about 4.0mpkWh at motorway speeds. So a real-world range of between 200 and 250 miles ought to be viable, which is quite good by class standards.

The Comfort version ought to take you further, but returns more like 3.5mpkWh (on the motorway) to 4.0kWh (in and around town) so it returns about 210-220 miles of longer-distance cruising, rising to about 260 miles in general short-range use, which isn't much of a return on the greater investment.

As standard, the Atto 2 gets a six-year/90,000-mile warranty, while its battery gets an eight-year/120,000-mile warranty – better than some rivals' offerings.

The Boost is priced from a little over £30,000, the Comfort just under £35,000. Unlike some of BYD's offerings in recent years, it's certainly not unrivalled on value for money, then, among either Chinese or European competitors (especially after the non-universal introduction of the UK's Electric Car Grant). A generous standard equipment tally and some strong PCP finance offerings ensure it's fairly convincing value, but not outstanding.

VERDICT

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BYD ATTO 2 front tracking

Rational, sensible factors such as efficiency and space are the best adverts for the BYD Atto 2. This is a time when many of its rivals seem to have more compelling ones, however, as subjective as some may be.

The car's levels of equipment are generous and its warranties competitive. It’s practical, quite comfortable, efficient and rangy enough, and easy to drive around town.

But, relative to the latest small crossovers from more established brands, there's much it doesn't offer. Out on the open road, its body control and drivability fall short of the class standard. And when you consider alternatives like the Renault 4, Kia EV2, Mini Aceman and Volvo EX30 (and the Mini and Volvo aren't relatively expensive next to BYD's upper-tier model), the Atto 2's lack of desirability and distinctive style become quite conspicuous.

By BYD's own standards, this is quite a sophisticated-looking, materially classy car. It certainly doesn't have the 'Temu Tiguan' looks of the Sealion 5 - but resembles something more like the kind of compact SUV that you'd expect of the brand behind the larger Seal, Seal U and Sealion 7.

We suspect, however, that it's neither cheap enough nor desirable enough to really do much to fuel BYD's growth for the time being, with all the attention among compact EVs now determinedly focused elsewhere.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.