BYD Seal vs Audi RS6

What's the difference?

Those big auto executives have good reason to be worried, because the Seal is yet another impressive offering from China’s most formidable EV player.

It’s not perfect. In some ways it’s trying too hard to be a luxury car, and I think the software in particular could use a little work, but the Seal just does so much right I think it will be hard to be disappointed with one, particularly given its keen entry price.

In fact, if we had to pick one from the range, it would probably be this mid-spec Premium. The range and power on offer are stellar, and all for less money than an entry-level Model 3 or Polestar 2.

To me at least, the RS6 is pretty much the ultimate fast and practical car. One which is just as comfortable plodding around town as it is tearing it up on the track. Keep in mind, too, this may be one of your last chances to have a car which looks like this, equipped with a V8 engine. So, have I convinced you? Would you consider one of these over a performance SUV? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Seal looks great. It’s about as modern a take on the traditional three-box sedan as you can get. It’s low-slung with curvy lines and a sporty overall feel.

The design touches, like the headlight and DRL surrounds, side skirts, and wheels are maximalist compared to the minimalist vibes of the Model 3 and the Polestar 2. But I don’t necessarily think that's a bad thing as it offers buyers a genuine alternative.

I also like the way the brand has executed the LED lights and particularly the tail-light fittings. There’s also an admirable restraint when it comes to badging compared to a lot of this car’s Chinese rivals. It doesn’t give off the vibe of a cut-price product at all.

Inside there are elements which are appealing, and some things which fall short. First up, I do think the Seal wears its influences throughout the industry on its sleeve a bit.

The digital dash cluster theme, for example, seems to (poorly) emulate the Mercedes-Benz software, the little plastic crystal shifter piece on the inside seems to have been overtly influenced by a similar (actual crystal) piece available in Volvos, while the centre screen and dual wireless phone chargers are pretty obviously BYD’s take on the similar bits available in the Model 3.

Maybe in this sense, it’s trying a little too hard to be a luxury car and a tech-heavy electric vehicle, with items which aren’t quite up to the same quality (particularly the software). But then, it all works well enough, and can you complain at the price?

One thing I think BYD gets right though is the level of comfort on offer in the cabin and the clever little styling bits which remind you of its namesake.

The door handle pieces and integrated speaker bits are shaped like a Seal flipper. As are the dash-mounted air vents, and if you look closely even the plastic garnish on the steering wheel looks a bit like a top-down cross section of the animal.

I like it because its subtle rather than in-your-face as some of the Atto 3's design elements are.

The quality is also up to muster, big time. There wasn’t a creak, groan, or rattle from this car’s interior in my entire time with it, including on some of Sydney's worst roads. And the seats, which are designed like absolute thrones, are clad in lovely soft leather. You sink into them. Even the two-tone Alcantara finish through the doors and centre console is thoughtfully placed.

At a distance the RS6 is just an unassuming station wagon, but the closer you get, the more apparent it becomes how mean it is. It’s wide, it’s chiselled, it’s not just good looking, it’s iconically Audi.

The stance is so wide, its ride height so low, and its wheels are so massive that any keen eye will be able to spot where the difference is between this and any old family hauler.

Wagons may not be trendy, but there’s something undeniably cool about having the hauling capacity of an SUV at the ride height of a sedan.

Of course, if you want to look even more svelte and don’t need the boot space, the RS7 is always lurking around at a slight price premium.

Inside, the RS6 has all the modern amenities of the Audi range. Expect the usual sharp screens, lovely sports seats, and a tasteful application of textures throughout.

There’s a blend of carbon-look finishes, chrome, leather and gloss black. Perhaps a little too much gloss black to keep clean, but the aesthetic is suitably upmarket. 

You can go to town on customisation, and the car we primarily tested had stitching and colour in the carbon patterns to match its 'Ascari Blue' exterior, but you can pick whatever shade or combination of colours your budget allows.

Audi’s software is pretty good these days, with an attractive theme and fast hardware to back it, and the brand’s ‘Virtual Cockpit’ is still one of the most aesthetically pleasing and customisable digital instrument systems on the market, despite being one of the first.

The Seal has a huge cabin, and in a lot of ways it feels like the large sedans of old. You can sit nice and low in the cabin, and there’s heaps of knee and headroom thanks to its width.

Soft-clad materials for resting your knees and elbows on go a long way towards keeping this car comfortable on longer journeys, and the presence of a digital dash and a holographic head-up display is nice to have compared to the bare-bones dash of the Tesla Model 3.

The wacky rotating central touchscreen feature makes an appearance from other BYDs, but again, it’s a bit silly and I’m not sure how much use you’ll get out of it. Even Apple CarPlay only works in landscape mode, so I didn’t find it useful.

Practicality features are abundant, with a large bottle holder in the doors, and two more in the centre console. One even has a floating floor, so you can push it down to accommodate large bottles if need be.

Dual wireless chargers are always a nice touch, and the bridge-style console has a large pass-through storage area underneath, which also hides the USB-C, USB-A, and 12V outlets. The armrest console box is nice and deep, too.

The back seat is enormous. Possibly one of the largest spaces in this segment. It comes at a cost to boot capacity, but your rear passengers won’t want for space no matter how tall they are.

At 182cm tall I had leagues of airspace behind my own driving position, and the wide cabin, accommodating seats, and flat floor mean the centre position is even useful for a full-sized adult.

Storage comes in the form of three pockets on the back of each front seat, a large bottle holder in the doors, two cupholders in the drop-down armrests, a small tray on the back of the centre console, and a small flip-out cover which reveals a USB-C and USB-A charging port for rear passengers. The rear seat even gets dual adjustable air vents, but no third climate zone.

The massive fixed glass roof looks the business and keeps the cabin airy, just like in the Model 3 and Polestar 2, but I find these big glass fittings tend to cook interiors in the Australian sun.

BYD tells us the tint is so heavy it has a ‘solar transmittance’ of just 16 per cent, but 16 per cent is still a lot in Australian summer. Thankfully, unlike its two rivals, BYD ships the Seal with a fold-out cover screen as standard.

Remember how I said the massive rear seat comes at a cost to boot space? At 400 litres the Seal’s boot is a bit compact, made worse by the fact it’s a sedan and not a liftback, so the access area is a bit narrow.

It could only fit the largest CarsGuide luggage case alongside the smallest one, but not all three including the medium case. This could be a blow to family buyers who need to fit a pram alongside other things.

Under the floor there’s an extra space great for the storage of your V2L adapter and AC charging cable, but there’s also only a tyre repair kit and no spare.

Okay, I promised a car with the practicality of an equivalent SUV, but it’s not quite there. The trade-off is still worth it, I promise, but there are a few areas where the RS6 isn’t as practical as you think it’s going to be, particularly for front occupants.

Yes, it’s a big wide car, with large but supportive seats and plenty of headroom, but the issue for those travelling in the front two seats is the surprisingly limited amount of storage.

Yes, there are two bottle holders in the centre console with a folding tray lid to hide them away, but they aren’t huge. Bigger bottles would have to go in the door bins, but even then they’re a bit height-constrained.

There’s a decent glove box on the passenger side, but even the centre console box is very shallow, with more than half of it taken up by a wireless phone charger.

The touch panel for the climate unit looks impressive but still can’t match having physical dials. It has clicky haptic feedback to your individual presses, and all the functions are permanently accessible instead of hidden in sub-menus, so if you’re going to make climate a touch-based interface, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Where the RS6 shines is in the back seat. Despite those big bucket front seats, I had heaps of room behind my own seating position (at 182cm tall), with lots of headroom and sufficient width in the cabin to spread out.

You sink into the rear seats, which are heavily contoured so riding in the back is a pretty good experience even on the track.

Rear passengers get four adjustable air vents in both the B pillars and in the centre, as well as their own touch panel for the rear climate zone.

USB power outlets are also available, and there are netted pockets on the front of both back seats, with a further two bottle holders in the drop-down armrest.

The centre seat is probably only good for kids, because there’s a very tall raise in the centre required for the driveshaft, eating all the legroom.

The boot is fairly large at 548 litres which is in mid-size SUV territory, although I will admit some performance SUV rivals offer closer to 600L.

Space expands to 1658L with the second row folded flat.

Let’s start with the bad news. Most people can’t afford one of these. The RS6, in all of its muscular glory, is more expensive than ever before. Now wearing a before-on-roads price-tag of $241,500, it’s hardly your average mum and dad family hauler. But then, there’s nothing average about the RS6.

It’s so well regarded amongst enthusiasts for multiple reasons. It’s the biggest meanest wagon you can buy, and somehow Audi has managed to make this version more powerful and even faster than before.

In fact, it’s one of the few normal looking combustion cars out there which can still hold a candle to many electric cars, with its whomping V8 helping it warp from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.4 seconds.

More on those performance specs later. If you’re wondering what else you get for your near-quarter-of-a-mill it’s pretty much every spec item Audi currently offers.

There are now lighter 22-inch alloy wheels, adaptive air suspension, a high-performance braking system, an RS-specific exhaust system, matrix LED headlights with adaptive high beams, a 10.1-inch multimedia touchscreen with navigation and wireless phone mirroring and one of the best digital instrument clusters on the market.

It also features Valcona leather interior trim, sporty bucket seats with perforated trim, honeycomb stitching, as well as ventilation and heating, additional cabin trim in synthetic suede (comprised of 45 per cent recycled fibres), ambient interior lighting and a panoramic sunroof.

It’s a lot of stuff, but one thing you get a little less of is sound insulation. Audi has chosen to remove some of it this time around so you can hear the V8 better from behind the wheel.

Each Seal variant gets its own drivetrain outputs, and the mid-spec Premium drives the rear wheels with a 230kW/360Nm electric motor via a reduction gear.

On paper, it’s slightly more powerful than the Model 3 RWD, with more power and less torque than the Polestar 2 Standard Range.

The RS6 is still packing eight cylinders in 2023, producing a massive 463kW/850Nm, somehow an increase (+22kW/50Nm) over the previous iteration.

Audi’s signature ‘Quattro’ all-wheel drive system is present alongside a limited-slip differential and four-wheel steering.

Air suspension and performance brakes and exhaust also feature, alongside an aggressive Continental SportContact 7 tyre package.

The 0-100km/h sprint time is now just 3.4 seconds, allowing you to show up even some electric cars, and the RS6 features 48-volt mild hybrid technology with a cylinder-on-demand system which can shut half the block down for more efficient coasting.

The transmission is an eight-speed torque converter unit which is smooth and effortless.

Providing power is a sizable 82.56kWh lithium-ion battery pack, using BYD’s signature weight and space-saving ‘Blade’ form-factor, and the more affordable LFP (lithium iron ferrophosphate) chemistry.

On the charging front, the Seal Premium can top up at 150kW on a DC unit (using a Type 2 CCS connector) for a 10-80 per cent charge in roughly 40 minutes, while on AC its a disappointing 7.0kW.

The 7.0kW inverter means it’s hardly worth plugging the Seal in at a slow public charger when you visit the shops, as you’ll only get about 50km of range an hour. It’s for this reason most cars with batteries this size have 11kW inverters.

Unlike the Model 3 or Polestar 2, though, the Seal features a V2L system, allowing you to power household appliances from its Type 2 charging port.

Claimed energy consumption for the Seal is 14.6kWh/100km which is low, and about what we were seeing on test. It’s a little hard to tell because the trip computer only offers total consumption over the entire life of the vehicle, or for the last 50km, but not for a set trip interval. Weird.

Officially, the RS6 and its eight cylinders drink a combined 11.8L/100km, although even with its fancy hybrid system and cylinder deactivation, my time with the car saw 15.0L/100km. The RS6 has a 72-litre fuel tank and takes only the finest 98RON unleaded fuel.

I wasn’t expecting the Seal to impress me particularly. After all, it’s in this segment against tough competition, amongst recently updated versions of the Model 3 and Polestar 2, and while the previous BYDs I’ve driven have been a cut above their Chinese contemporaries, they also haven’t done a lot to stand out from the crowd.

Clearly, though, BYD has something to prove with its sporting sedan and the Seal is immediately impressive. The cabin is quiet and refined, the seating position is great it's smooth from take-off.

The steering has an artificial tinge to it removing a bit of feedback from the road, but proves at least quick and accurate at speed, and the handling is superb.

I kept pushing the Seal in my test drive, expecting gnarly characteristics to surface but they didn’t. This sedan grabs onto the road with excellent control and traction at the rear, spurred along by its long wheelbase, and improved tyre choice (Continental rather than the sub-par Chinese rubber worn by the Atto 3 and Dolphin).

While on paper it appears to have at least comparable motor output figures to the Polestar 2 and Model 3 - the Seal Premium doesn’t quite feel as rapid, its electric motor having a more relaxed vibe and responsiveness when you stomp on the go pedal.

This can be tweaked a little by dialling it up to Sport mode, and while it still doesn’t feel quite as breakneck fast as the Model 3, in particular, it’s plenty to be going on with.

The most impressive part of the Seal drive experience, though, is its ride. Ride is a constant problem for EVs as manufacturers go to lengths to tame the additional weight of batteries, but the Seal is the most impressive in its cohort, and by quite a margin.

It’s firm enough to be controlled, but has a lovely soft edge to it, so larger bumps, frequent corrugations, or sharper road imperfections don’t ruin your day.

The Model 3 and Polestar 2, even in their improved forms, are not this good. In a lot of ways the Seal’s suspension tune reminds me of the Mustang Mach-e. It has a soft edge, offset by a bit of secondary jiggle as the car settles, which is its only real blemish.

The Seal has no right being this good. It’s now not just matching its far more established rivals but doing some things significantly better.

As you might have guessed from its impressive engine and performance equipment, the RS6 is a certified weapon on road and track.

On the road you can expect a quiet, refined cabin, superbly balanced steering for low and high speeds and a gentle ride quality courtesy of the pricey air set-up.

It’s as noisy or as quiet as you want it to be, with the cylinder deactivation toning things down at low speeds, and the engine roaring to life under heavy acceleration, or when the 'Dynamic' drive mode is selected.

It can at times be alarming how much the RS6 leaps to life, as it feels so cushy in a city, its width and cabin giving the feel of a luxury car rather than a performance one.

Make no mistake, though, the RS6 is properly quick, and when you give it a kick, it’s the roaring, aggressive machine the spec sheet suggests.

The best place for this? The track, of course. The big V8 and the capability of the all-wheel drive system are truly best explored at velocities impossible to legally achieve on the road.

Once you get past the bark and snarl of this wagon’s eight-cylinders at full force, and the lightning-fast shifts of its eight-speed automatic, you’ll have a moment to appreciate the way it simply holds to the tarmac when you tilt it into the corners, providing a balance when loaded up which only air suspension can provide.

The steering is awesome, communicating the texture of the road nicely to the driver, and requiring just the right amount of force to keep the car pointing where it needs to go.

The grip level is astounding with the huge tyres and the four-wheel steer system lets this hefty wagon take corners at a tighter angle than your brain initially allows.

Thankfully, the four-wheel steer system isn’t weird, either. While it can have a strange effect on some cars, in the RS6 it only bends your mind slightly when you tip it into a hairpin. Otherwise it feels pretty normal.

When everything is warmed up, it can let its guard down slightly and allows the driver to eke out a slide at the rear here and there for extra fun-factor

Jeez. What a machine. I guess this is what a quarter of a million dollars buys. A car that can do it all. Take the kids to the school in comfort and tear it up on the track like few other passenger cars on the same day.

There’s a caveat, though. A small one which looks like it will turn into a big one for cars like this in the near future.

I had the opportunity to drive the RS e-tron GT around the same circuit and it was better. Much better.

It was faster, more accurate, more composed. It was so effortless, I didn’t realise exactly how much quicker than the RS6 it was until I drove them back-to-back.

It’s a good sign for the future, but also a reminder a V8 like this isn’t the performance pinnacle it once was.

Like its standard cabin equipment, the RS6 has had the entire catalogue thrown at it for active safety gear. Included is freeway-speed auto emergency braking with pedestrian, cyclist, and intersection detection, lane keep assist with lane departure warning, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, an exit warning system, and adaptve cruise control with traffic jam assist.

Elsewhere the RS6 gets dual front, dual side, and head curtain airbags, with ISOFIX points on the outer two rear seats as well as three top-tethers across the rear row.

The RS6 is not safety rated by ANCAP, but the rest of the A6 range was awarded a maximum five stars in 2018. 

The long-term ownership aspect for a BYD product is still a bit of a mystery as the current crop of cars have only just landed in Australia in the last year or two, but if it offers you any peace of mind, the Seal is covered by a six-year/150,000km warranty with a separate eight-year/160,000km warranty for the battery pack.

In order to avoid having to have a traditional dealer network, BYD has partnered with MyCar to fulfil servicing. Visits to one of these locations is required once every 12 months or 20,000km whichever comes first, and pricing is fixed for the first eight years, working out to an annual average of $299.

Five years and unlimited kilometres is the warranty length, and Audi’s ownership program includes invites to events like the one we were able to experience for the launch of this car. A track-test of the RS6 and the RS e-tron GT.

If you own one, I recommend them, you’ll learn a thing or two about the car and possibly yourself while you’re at it.

Servicing is required once every 12 months or 15,000km, and a service pack covering the first five years or 75,000km can be purchased alongside the car at a cost of $4360.

It works out at $872 per year, which isn't economy car cheap, but with such a complex drivetrain, what did you expect?