Which brings us to the Atto 2’s interior. When you’re going to battle with cars like the e-2008, an eye-catching design will always help.
But aside from being interesting to look at, it has to be tough enough to withstand multiple school runs, free from infotainment glitches, easy to use and practical.
Let’s start with that last bit, because there’s a good amount of space on offer. The boot offers 400 litres with the rear seats in their normal position, beating almost all of its main rivals. It’s bested only by the 466-litre Kona. With the seats folded down (they split 60/40), you get 1340 litres, and there’s an adjustable boot floor fitted as standard.
Space in the rear is very generous: occupants over 6ft tall will be more than happy on long journeys. The seating position, however, is not the most comfortable, because of the high floor. You seem to sit slightly too upright and there isn’t that much under-thigh support.
Up front, the cabin feels light and airy because of that panoramic windscreen and the sparsely featured dashboard gives it a clean but forgettable look. Aside from the diamond-lookalike gear selector, it’s far more subdued inside than the zany Atto 3, which is a shame – especially since some of its alternatives have a more interesting design.
Perceived material quality is okay, with soft-touch plastics, faux leather that gives a decent impression of the real thing and doors that close with a reassuring thud. What’s more, the unpleasant chemical smell that has plagued other BYDs isn’t present here.
BYD has promised unrivalled standard equipment levels, with features that are either cost options elsewhere, or “new to the segment as a whole”. The latter includes a karaoke system, which is exactly how it sounds: you get a microphone and song lyrics appear on the infotainment display. It’s a gimmick, of course, and we would be surprised if any owners make use of it beyond day one.
Multimedia system
The large instrument display and infotainment display both have an excellent resolution, but the latter takes some getting used to.
The rotating touchscreen has great resolution, is responsive and suffered no glitches during our time with it. The Android-based software pleases the eye with soft, light-coloured graphics and small, rounded fonts, but the menu structures are a bit haphazard and the individual icons are too small. They also look very similar to each other, making it more challenging to use while driving.
Thankfully, BYD has resisted the temptation to put every secondary control on the touchscreen. There are a number of physical buttons on either side of the gear selector, including for the air-con, audio volume and windscreen demister.
There’s also a voice command system that can respond to multiple demands at once, and it’s pretty good at understanding different accents.
There’s also a ‘swipe’ function that means you can control the fan speed and air temperature by swiping three fingers on the screen. This is a bit more intuitive than hunting around in the menus, but physical dials would be more welcome.