BYD Pushes the Seagull Upscale: Second-Gen Model Arrives October 20 With More Room, More Muscle

BYD has quietly penciled in October 20 as the launch date for the second generation of its Seagull, a nameplate that has been one of the strongest volume drivers in the company’s Ocean family since arriving in April 2023. Word of the timing came via Chinese automotive outlet Yiche, which attributed the schedule to information from BYD itself. The automaker has not yet confirmed the date through its own channels, having previously committed only to putting the car on sale before the year is out. Pre-orders for the redesigned model opened in China on October 9, with no pricing attached at that point.

The most consequential change is size. Homologation paperwork filed earlier with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology puts the new Seagull at 4,205 mm long, 1,810 mm wide and 1,570 mm tall, riding on a 2,650 mm wheelbase. That works out to 425 mm of added length and a 150 mm stretch between the axles versus the outgoing car, and it lifts seating capacity from four to five. In practical terms, the second-gen Seagull edges into the footprint of BYD’s larger Dolphin rather than sitting in a class of its own.

Output climbs sharply as well. Both variants described in the filings use a permanent magnet synchronous motor rated at 95 kW (127 hp), a substantial jump over the 55 kW of the current model, and both rely on lithium iron phosphate battery packs. One of the two versions can be specified with LiDAR and supplementary radar hardware, extending an option BYD first introduced on the 2026 Seagull that went on sale in May. Visually, the car adopts a reworked front end with trident-style lighting, offered across six exterior paint choices, alongside updates to the cabin and its stowage layout.

Convenience equipment gets a boost too. According to Yiche, the newcomer gains power-adjustable front seats, a massage function for the driver and rear-seat air vents. It also carries a 94-liter front trunk and a maximum of 1,380 liters of cargo space with the rear seats folded. For context, the 2026 Seagull that debuted in May carried a price band of 69,900 to 85,900 yuan, with LiDAR costing extra on selected trims.

The launch lands at a delicate moment in the Seagull’s commercial arc. The model sold 38,650 units in September, up 11.75 percent year-on-year and 7.05 percent over August, marking a second straight month of annual growth. Yet the first nine months of the year produced 265,901 sales, a 33.22 percent decline compared with the same stretch of 2025. For scale, the Seagull shifted 529,537 units across 2025, and cumulative deliveries since its 2023 debut stood at roughly 1.55 million through the end of September. A bigger, quicker and better-equipped Seagull is BYD’s bid to reverse that year-to-date slide — while also nudging buyers toward a model whose dimensions now overlap more directly with its own Dolphin.