BYD Sealion 5 2026 Video Review

Following the money comes pretty naturally to carmakers. It’s what happens when the product planning department smells a new direction on the breeze and then handballs that to the design and engineering folks who turn a perceived market trend into a showroom reality. And when everybody gets it right, you have a new default product. And everybody else has to keep up. Some even have to catch up.

We’ve seen it plenty of times before, too. Think about those early 1980s days when the default small car went from a sedan to the five-door hatchback. Didn’t that catch on? You might also remember more recently when a family car had to be a four-wheel drive. And what about the dual-cab ute revolution of the last 15 years?

The other strident market segment right now is the SUV, of course. And within that, most recently has been the march to electrification, starting with conventional hybrid technology and now progressing to the new must-have, a plug-in hybrid platform.

Read the full BYD Sealion 5 2026 review: Australian first drive.