BYD Atto 2 Review & Prices

The BYD Atto 2 is a small SUV that majors on space and standard kit. It’s great at pottering around town but a bit of a let down to drive otherwise, especially when compared to its alternatives.

You can think of the Atto 2 as one of those clever all-in-one coffee table/desk combos you can get on Temu. Yes it offers a lot in a practical package, but the fit and finish is a bit behind the family-favourite items from Ikea or Dunelm.

That being said, BYD products are generally impressive and it's the latest in a series of rather compelling cars including the BYD Seal and Dolphin; the small SUV has the Skoda Elroq, Kia EV3, Leapmotor B10 and Smart #1 firmly in its sights.

However, the Atto 2 is far from exciting to look at, even in the rather fetching tone of pastel green our test car came painted in. You get a sleek-enough front end with slender headlights joining up to a blanked-off ‘grille’, while the roofline has more than a whiff of Smart about it. It’s not an ugly car by any means, just a bit generic.

Where most BYD models have funky interiors, the Atto 2 is the least interesting cabin from the brand yet. Aside from the rotating 12.9-inch infotainment screen and standard-fit panoramic sunroof, there’s little in the way of eye-catching features.

What it lacks in style, however, it makes up for in substance, as the Atto 2 has plenty of room inside - and lots of storage cubbies, too. There’s a big shelf of sorts underneath the centre console, with two USB-C ports tucked away, a pair of cupholders and a well-sized glovebox, too.

The driving position is a bit high, but otherwise the seats are fairly comfortable and there’s plenty of space in the back for three adults, with ample legroom and headroom. The 450-litre boot is well-shaped and you get a useful bit of underfloor storage for the charging cables as well as two deep storage bins at the sides.

Material quality is a mixed bag, with the trimmed surfaces in a sleek leatherette, but the plastics are all rather hard and scratchy. The infotainment system is very responsive and features crisp graphics, but there are a few too many menus to navigate - and the driver assistance tech bongs at you far too much.

Entry-level Boost models offer a 214-mile range, while the more expensive Comfort has a claimed 267-mile range.

Around town the Atto 2 is a stress-free car to drive, with steering that’s light enough to throw around and excellent all-round visibility. It’s comfortable, too, but gets shaken around a bit by rougher roads.

Long journeys aren’t as pleasant in the Atto 2, with noticeable wind noise around the side mirrors at a cruise, and that jittery sensation is amplified on bad sections of motorway. The steering, while direct, seems a bit fidgety at high speeds, which combined with the soft suspension means the Atto 2 never feels that stable, while country lanes are best taken at a moderate pace.

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The Atto 2 starts at just under £31,000, making it a little bit cheaper than the Skoda Elroq and Kia EV3, while also being a lot more affordable than the Renault Scenic E-Tech. The Smart #1 costs less than the BYD, but the Atto 2 is a very well-equipped car, even in entry-level spec.

Boost models come equipped with the smaller 51.1kWh battery meaning 214 miles of electric range, a heat pump, 17-inch alloy wheels, heated steering wheel and front seats. You even get 360-degree parking cameras, a panoramic sunroof and a 12.8-inch rotatable infotainment display. Whew.

Comfort models are around £4,000 more expensive, and while there isn’t a huge difference in spec with the addition of rear privacy glass, electrically folding door mirrors and lumbar support for the driver’s seat, you’re paying for the bigger 64.8kWh battery with 267 miles of range.

A smooth electric motor makes for steady progress, but the Atto 2 isn’t a consummate long-distance cruiser

Around town

You’ll find little to complain about when pottering around town in the Atto 2. The steering manages to be light without feeling like you’re stirring soup when you turn the wheel, and you get more feel than you’d expect from a family-friendly small SUV. It even feels quite agile.

It’s comfortable too, dispatching big speed bumps and potholes with ease, not bouncing you down the road as in some of its alternatives with soft suspension. Rough roads are noticeable though, because you really feel vibrations through the steering wheel as you make your way across pock-marked, rutted streets.

You won’t find the regenerative braking very intuitive, because it’s very weak at low speeds and gets more noticeable at higher speeds. Even if you put it into ‘high’ mode, you’ll only notice the difference on a quick road, not around town. Odd.

The reasonable 10.8-metre turning circle means it’s easy to chuck though bends and complete three-point turns without holding up traffic for too long. You sit up high with good visibility over the stubby bonnet, and the large windows make it easy to check over your shoulder at junctions or when parking - especially with the standard-fit 360-degree cameras.

On the motorway

Things aren’t as well resolved at higher speeds. While you’ll make decent progress accelerating down a slip road and the Atto 2 will sit at the national speed limit without feeling strained, the soft suspension that does well around town lets it down here.

Combined with the darty steering, the small BYD never really feels settled at a high speed cruise, as keeping centred in your lane requires more steering input than you’d like, rocking the car from side to side a bit. It can leave you feeling a little uneasy if you’re not being perfectly smooth with your inputs.

There’s noticeable wind noise from the side mirrors, and the same jittery feedback you get through the steering wheel around town is amplified when you’re at the national speed limit. The adaptive cruise control isn’t very pleasant either, bouncing you from white line to white line - especially around high-speed bends.

On a twisty road

You’ll have a far better time in the Atto 2 if you take country lanes at a moderate speed, as opposed to attacking corners with too much enthusiasm. It makes no sporting promises, but the little SUV really feels out of its depth on a twisty road with plenty of body lean around turns and rocking back and forth when accelerating and braking at speed.

You’ll hear an audible chirp from the tyres when pulling onto a fast road at a junction, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve got enough space to accelerate gently from a complete stop. There’s also a noticeable shimmy when you hit a bump mid-corner, but if you dial it back and enjoy the sights, the Atto 2 is perfectly acceptable.

The Atto 2 makes excellent use of a boxy body, offering a lot of interior and boot space - but the boot is a bit small

Being taller than the longer and wider Atto 3, it’s little wonder that the Atto 2 offers loads of room inside. What feels like metres of headroom thanks to the tall pillars and large windows is complemented by lots of storage cubbies up front.

There are a pair of cupholders in the centre console as well as a well-sized glovebox, storage shelf beneath the centre console, a wide space for two phones to rest side-by-side (with one wireless charger) and long - if skinny - door pockets.

You get a fair amount of adjustment in the seats and steering wheel, but only top-spec cars get adjustable lumbar and you can’t make the seat go very low. The headrests are mounted quite far forwards, which can be tiring on long drives.

Space in the back seats

Again, the Atto 2’s tall roofline and large windows do wonders in the back, with buckets of space for tall passengers and enough room for three adults to sit side-by-side with little complaints. There’s no hump in the floor to get in the way, either, and you get ample legroom.

Annoyingly there’s no fold-down armrest in the middle, but you do get handy pockets on the seat backs with pouches for a magazine or tablet and a separate one for your phone.

Forward visibility is a bit lacking because of the high-mounted front seats, but otherwise there’s plenty of light back there thanks to the full-length glass sunroof and it’s a comfortable cabin to sit in.

Boot space

The Atto 2 only has a 400-litre boot in Boost spec, but a 450-litre boot for the Comfort model. Even then it’s 10 litres down on the Kia EV3 and 20 litres down on the Skoda Elroq, but you still get a very useful rectangular shape with no lumps in the way and a handy bit of under-floor storage for the charging cables.

You can fold the back seats completely flat and drop the boot floor down, if you need more space.

At the sides of the boot are two deep storage bins which are convenient if you’ve got smaller items to store and you don’t want them rolling around the boot. There’s no boot lip to contend with either, and though there are a couple of storage hooks there isn’t a 12-volt plug there.

BYD has toned down its funky cabins for the Atto 2, but it’s a bit too bland as a result

You’ll probably be expecting a wild interior full of curves and funky shapes in the Atto 2, as you get in the BYD Seal and Dolphin, but the small SUV is the least out-there cabin that BYD has produced since landing in the UK.

There aren’t any notable design features, with a straight-laced dashboard that features a floating 12.9-inch touchscreen floating in front of it, while there’s a set of silver-trimmed vents sitting at either end of the dash and above the centre console. The digital driver’s display is tricky to read, with a small font that‘s not very legible at a quick glance.

The front seats themselves look good, with a sporty shape yet bolsters that aren’t too body-hugging. You get ISOFIX child seat anchor points on the outer two rear seats in the Boost, while the Comfort gains additional ISOFIX in the front, too.

Material quality is fine, with smooth leatherette on the seats and lower dashboard and a generally solid feel to the switchgear, but there are plenty of hard, scratchy lower plastics below the dashboard, on the lower door cards, centre console and the door tops in the back.

While the infotainment is very slick and responsive to your touch and swipe, you can’t actually turn off the air con without delving into the menu - even with the climate shortcut bar at the bottom of the infotainment display. The sound system is lacking in audio quality, too.

Range varies across the Atto 2’s two trim levels. The entry-level Boost models offer a claimed 214 miles to a charge thanks to its 51.1kWh battery, while the more expensive Comfort model has a bigger 64.8kWh battery - good for a claimed 267 miles.

That’s on par with its European alternative; the Skoda Elroq is £1,000 pounds more expensive than the base-model Atto 2 but offers 230 miles to a charge.

The Kia EV3 meanwhile only offers 270 miles with the smallest battery equipped, but the larger battery model is only £2,000 more expensive than the Atto 2 Comfort and can travel an outstanding 375 miles compared to the BYD’s 267 miles.

We only managed to achieve an efficiency figure of 3.1 miles per kilowatt hour in our testing of the Atto 2 Boost which means a lacklustre 168-mile maximum range, but that was with a lot of hilly country lanes and motorway driving on our test route, so you should expect to see better if you’re driving around town.

All Atto 2s come with a standard fit heat pump which is particularly useful for preserving the battery in winter, but the entry-level versions can only charge at a rather slow 82kW, taking 38 minutes to top up from 10-80%. Even with its larger battery the Atto 2 Comfort can charge by the same percentage in only 25 minutes.

On an 11kW wall box you’ll be able to top the Boost model up from empty in five hours and 42 minutes, while the Comfort will take seven hours and 12 minutes.

You’ll pay the cheapest level of road tax in any Atto 2, and both trim levels avoid the luxury car supplement between years two and six because they cost under £40,000. Company car drivers will also benefit from the lowest band of benefit-in-kind payments.

The Atto 2 has yet to be crash tested by Euro NCAP, but the larger Atto 3 scored an excellent five-star rating when tested in 2022. The smaller Dolphin hatchback also earned a five-star result, and both models scored very highly on adult and child occupant safety.

You get the same level of safety assistance tech in the Atto 2, with an array of emergency software including automatic braking, adaptive, lane-keeping cruise control, collision warning front and rear, blind spot detection and a driver attention monitoring system - but it’s infernally annoying, hard to switch off and far too sensitive.

The BYD Atto 2 is far too new to have had any issues come to light, but BYD scored very poorly in the 2025 Driver Power survey for owner satisfaction, coming 30th out of 31 manufacturers entered.

You do, however, get a six-year, 93,750-mile warranty on the Atto 2, as well as an additional two years of warranty cover for the electric motor. The battery gets an eight-year, 125,000-mile warrant of its own.

While this is impressive, Toyota and Lexus still lead the way with a warranty that extends up to ten years or 100,000 miles so long as you keep up with main dealer servicing.