Mazda 6E vs BYD Seal

What's the difference?

It’s fair to say Mazda didn’t exactly rush into the electric vehicle market with a flourish. Its first battery-powered offering, the MX-30, was a small SUV with a big price and it sold in small numbers.

But with EV sales on the rise in 2026, the timing is perfect for its second electric offering to land in Australia, and the Mazda 6e is a very different proposition to the MX-30.

The 6e is a mid-size sedan, with a very competitive price and it has plenty of influence from the booming Chinese EV industry. The 6e is a product of the long-time joint-venture between Mazda and Changan and is the first car built in China sold in Australia by the Japanese brand.

The 6e (which is known as the EZ-6 in China) shares its underpinnings with the Deepal L07, with Deepal being the electric brand for Changan Automobiles. 

So, can this second EV, with Chinese influence, help Mazda catch up lost ground in the electric car race? Read on to find out…

BYD. The three letters which keep auto executives from the world's top brands up at night.

The brand’s meteoric rise in Australia from a trickle of imports to a torrent of Chinese-built EVs, outselling even Tesla in the first month of 2024, is testament to this relative newcomer’s ability to surprise and impress its buyers and the industry as a whole.

The car we’re looking at for this review, the Seal, could be its biggest challenge yet. Not only does it have to compete head-to-head with the car which put EVs on the map for mainstream buyers - the Tesla Model 3 - but it also has to vie for a share of the increasingly shrinking sedan market.

So, what’s the deal with the Seal? Is it any good? And, why did BYD choose to name it after a marine mammal? Read on to find out.