After waiting an entire month, I finally picked up my BYD Atto 3 last week Saturday (July 1st). I have to say, the process of purchasing the BYD Atto 3 Extended Range did not go smoothly and there were many customer service deficiencies that I experienced that started from the moment I finished my test drive, to picking up the car. For example, I was told that my car was ready to be picked up at the Brooklyn dealership. I confirmed this the day before. When I turned up, my car was not there and I had to drive an additional 1 hr to the Dandenong dealership to pick it up. Of cause, the staff at the Dandenong site made me wait nearly an hour before handing the car over. At one stage, I was so horrified by the customer service experience, I actually wanted to cancel my order, but I am glad I didn't.
After one week of driving around Melbourne, to work, and back from work, I find the car a real pleasure to drive and its performance is quite good for my use case. I feel confident enough to take it for a drive along the Great Ocean Road all the way to Warrnambool and back to Melbourne in early August. So far, I have been charging the car at home using the supplied BYD 'Granny' charger. But, I mainly charge for free at work using the on-site Level 2 AC chargers (7.2 kW max). I still have to get use to using public fast DC chargers when doing long trips away from home. I tried this morning with the closes Evie fast DC charger, and needed a few attempts to get the charging to start.
Things that I like:
Despite some reviewers' critics, I feel that there is a tangible difference between Sports mode and Eco mode when accelerating. When I drove it the first time, the staff that showed me the car set the mode to Sport mode and I had to turn it down to Standard/ECO because my passenger and I was not used to the instant torque. So, I have been driving the car in ECO mode all week, until today, when I switched it back to Sport mode. I actually made the wheels spin when trying to run through a yellow light which surprised me a bit, but, I was still able to keep the car under control.
Similarly, I can also feel the difference between light and strong regen braking. The car was originally set to light regen from the dealership. When I set it to Strong, the immediate deceleration when I released the accelerator, and when I hit the breaks definitely felt stronger and make me sick a few times until I got use to it. Now, I just leave it at Strong regen all the time.
Adaptive Cruise Control and Intelligent Cruise Control works extremely well even when driving at 110 kph. It took me a while to figure out how to turn it on. When I first started driving the Atto 3, ACC would not turn on, it just said ACC Failed. But, after reading the manual, I realised that the electronic stability control (ESC) was switched off and ACC/ICC will only engage if ESC is on.
Things that I don't like:
Android auto has to be the biggest issue. It just feels like it is still in beta. But, I have been using it so I can use Google Maps without side loading Google Maps. When trying to use Google Maps with Android Auto, Google Maps will not load until I turn off Cellular Data from the car. The BYD maps navigation is fine, except, it does not have the option to find routes that avoid toll roads, hence, the need to use Google Maps. I might have to try to side load Google Maps.
Android Auto, or maybe bluetooth is affected by tram lines. There is a junction along Mt Alexander Rd in Essendon that will cause Android Auto to shut off. But, after a minute, Android Auto restarts, and Google Maps comes back on and continues. I think it is probably the electromagnetic interference from the tram lines jamming the bluetooth signal. I wonder if there is a way to use Android Auto with a USB cable?
You can't view history or past trip statistics. I would like to be able to see energy consumption, distance traveled for each trip made in the past.
Useless expected range, however, this appears to have been fixed after the 1.6 update and setting the to Dynamic distance calculation. I will need to see how accurate the dynamic estimation is.
I appear to only have 500 MB of cellular date, even though the BYD Dealership told me that I will get 2 GB per month. So, I will have to ring up or e-mail BYD customer support to sort this out.
I don't understand why floor mats aren't provided for free or as a paid extra. Both the Brooklyn and Dandenong didn't even have any to sell to me when I went to pick up the car on a wet Melbourne day. Many online stores were also sold out, so I guess many people were also ordering mats for their Atto 3. They are able to provide different mats as options for Dolphin orders, so that should have also been the case when ordering the Atto 3. But, I guess this is to do with the poor customer service. I do hope that my servicing experience with MyCar will be better.
Any way, this my experience with the car after a week. Most of the things I don't like are really minor issues, and overall, I think it's a really great car to drive. I hope all you Atto 3 drivers are still appreciating the Atto 3 like I am.
After one week of driving around Melbourne, to work, and back from work, I find the car a real pleasure to drive and its performance is quite good for my use case. I feel confident enough to take it for a drive along the Great Ocean Road all the way to Warrnambool and back to Melbourne in early August. So far, I have been charging the car at home using the supplied BYD 'Granny' charger. But, I mainly charge for free at work using the on-site Level 2 AC chargers (7.2 kW max). I still have to get use to using public fast DC chargers when doing long trips away from home. I tried this morning with the closes Evie fast DC charger, and needed a few attempts to get the charging to start.
Things that I like:
Despite some reviewers' critics, I feel that there is a tangible difference between Sports mode and Eco mode when accelerating. When I drove it the first time, the staff that showed me the car set the mode to Sport mode and I had to turn it down to Standard/ECO because my passenger and I was not used to the instant torque. So, I have been driving the car in ECO mode all week, until today, when I switched it back to Sport mode. I actually made the wheels spin when trying to run through a yellow light which surprised me a bit, but, I was still able to keep the car under control.
Similarly, I can also feel the difference between light and strong regen braking. The car was originally set to light regen from the dealership. When I set it to Strong, the immediate deceleration when I released the accelerator, and when I hit the breaks definitely felt stronger and make me sick a few times until I got use to it. Now, I just leave it at Strong regen all the time.
Adaptive Cruise Control and Intelligent Cruise Control works extremely well even when driving at 110 kph. It took me a while to figure out how to turn it on. When I first started driving the Atto 3, ACC would not turn on, it just said ACC Failed. But, after reading the manual, I realised that the electronic stability control (ESC) was switched off and ACC/ICC will only engage if ESC is on.
Things that I don't like:
Android auto has to be the biggest issue. It just feels like it is still in beta. But, I have been using it so I can use Google Maps without side loading Google Maps. When trying to use Google Maps with Android Auto, Google Maps will not load until I turn off Cellular Data from the car. The BYD maps navigation is fine, except, it does not have the option to find routes that avoid toll roads, hence, the need to use Google Maps. I might have to try to side load Google Maps.
Android Auto, or maybe bluetooth is affected by tram lines. There is a junction along Mt Alexander Rd in Essendon that will cause Android Auto to shut off. But, after a minute, Android Auto restarts, and Google Maps comes back on and continues. I think it is probably the electromagnetic interference from the tram lines jamming the bluetooth signal. I wonder if there is a way to use Android Auto with a USB cable?
You can't view history or past trip statistics. I would like to be able to see energy consumption, distance traveled for each trip made in the past.
Useless expected range, however, this appears to have been fixed after the 1.6 update and setting the to Dynamic distance calculation. I will need to see how accurate the dynamic estimation is.
I appear to only have 500 MB of cellular date, even though the BYD Dealership told me that I will get 2 GB per month. So, I will have to ring up or e-mail BYD customer support to sort this out.
I don't understand why floor mats aren't provided for free or as a paid extra. Both the Brooklyn and Dandenong didn't even have any to sell to me when I went to pick up the car on a wet Melbourne day. Many online stores were also sold out, so I guess many people were also ordering mats for their Atto 3. They are able to provide different mats as options for Dolphin orders, so that should have also been the case when ordering the Atto 3. But, I guess this is to do with the poor customer service. I do hope that my servicing experience with MyCar will be better.
Any way, this my experience with the car after a week. Most of the things I don't like are really minor issues, and overall, I think it's a really great car to drive. I hope all you Atto 3 drivers are still appreciating the Atto 3 like I am.
