BYD Atto 2 Review: A Weekend of Family Life in BYD’s Smallest SUV

It’s always nice to have a car on test, especially when it’s for the entire weekend. So many thoughts and ideas for what to do with it and where to go. But for this one, I just went with the flow of a fairly packed family schedule. This test was all about how the BYD performs in the thick of family life.

When I collected the BYD Atto 2 from BYD South West Exeter on the Friday afternoon, I was looking forward to spending some proper time with it. Too many car reviews are based on a few hours behind the wheel on roads chosen by a manufacturer. Real life tends to be a bit different.

I was fortunate to test the Atto 2 Comfort model, which is at the high end of the range and the list price for this model is circa £35k. It comes with the larger 64.8kWh battery and a claimed range of around 267 miles (the dashboard told me 280). On paper, that’s the sort of figure that sounds like it should make life fairly easy for most families, especially on local trips and the occasional slightly longer one. Over the next three days I was going to find out whether that holds up when you’re actually using it for family visits, beach trips and everything in between.

Over the next three days we loaded up the Atto 2 with our inflatable paddleboard (a real space invader for most smaller car boots) for a trip to Budleigh Salterton beach, took my son across Dartmoor to visit his Grandma in Tavistock, carried the weekly family shop home from Sainsbury’s, brought my wife and I down to Topsham Quay for a date night dinner and then transported us to Dartington Hall for the Antiques Roadshow (without the grandfather clock in the back!), aka a family day out! In other words, exactly the sort of jobs most family cars spend their lives doing.

The car itself was finished in “Obsidian Black”. It looked smart enough when it arrived, but within hours it was showing pollen and road dust. Black just doesn’t stay clean for long, does it? If I were choosing one of these cars myself, I’d go for a lighter colour like BYD’s “Hiking Green”. The Atto 2 suits lighter colours/metallics better as they show off its shape - the black does tend to lose the lines of the car too!

What immediately impressed me, though, wasn’t the way it looked but the way it felt inside. I’m tall and I’ve got a bit of a dodgy back, so comfort and ease of getting in and out of a family car matters more to me than most things, and also to my elderly mum who we gave a lift to the shops. These days, one of the first things I judge any car on is the seat. You can keep your launch control systems and Nürburgring lap times. Give me a seat that doesn’t leave me uncomfortable after a couple of hours and doesn’t make getting in and out a chore, and you’ve got my attention. Big tick from me - and Grandma found it very easy to get in and out of too!

The seats are properly comfortable and there’s loads of room. The panoramic roof on the Comfort model helps enormously because it fills the cabin with light and makes the whole car feel more spacious. Combined with the large windows all round, it’s a surprisingly airy place to spend time.

That might not sound like a big deal until you’ve travelled with children. My son is prone to car sickness, especially on twistier journeys, even in the front seat sometimes. Across this weekend though, from Dartmoor lanes to coastal runs, he was completely fine in the Atto 2. I think the combination of the airy cabin, all that glass and the ability to actually see out properly made a noticeable difference.

On the Dartmoor run to Tavistock, he also latched onto two things immediately. The panoramic roof and what he called the “cool, big screen”. Between those two things he was perfectly entertained for most of the journey, although I wish he’d stop fiddling with the DAB radio stations every two minutes!

My wife also had a go behind the wheel of the Atto 2 over the weekend. She found it very intuitive and easy to get comfortable with straight away. The screen is fairly busy and there are a million and one settings buried in there, but the three-finger swipe control for essential things like heating/cooling and fan speed makes a huge difference in day-to-day use. We agreed this was well thought out compared to some screen-based dashboard controls on other cars we’ve tried. I do still prefer physical buttons for essential controls though, it’s easier and much safer. But most manufacturers have moved away from this recently.

We made good use of Apple CarPlay for all our journeys, and it worked flawlessly, it was quick to connect, stable, and easy to rely on without any of the usual faff you sometimes get in new cars. For us, it basically became the default setup from the moment we got in. Having the nice big storage on top of the centre console for phones and wireless charging was a great feature too. Also, the hidden cubby storage below the centre console was a clever feature. Lots of space. Super handy.

Our first proper outing all together was to Budleigh Salterton beach. Before leaving I had one important question that no specification sheet was going to answer. Would the paddleboard fit? As it turned out, yes. Easily. In fact, after loading the paddleboard, towels, bags, food and all the other bits and pieces that seem to accompany every family beach trip (half of which we never seem to use), there was still room to spare. Of course, if I’d remembered the paddle board pump that might have helped, but a friendly beach goer soon sorted us out.

The drive over to Budleigh itself highlighted something else. The Atto 2 rides really well. That’s particularly noticeable in Devon where roads often resemble archaeological digs rather than highways. It soaked up rough surfaces, potholes and broken tarmac with a composure that was genuinely impressive. Our normal family car is a SEAT Arona, which I love. But the BYD had a softer more compliant suspension and was better suited to our local roads.

That became even more obvious on the run across Dartmoor to Tavistock. The Atto 2 just got on with it. No crashing, no fidgeting, no drama. Just a calm, comfortable drive.

By Sunday afternoon I had covered around 200 miles, including a return trip to the Antiques Road show in Dartington. It struck me that throughout the entire weekend I had charged it exclusively from a standard three-pin socket at home. No wall box charger needed for how we used it. No public chargers, which I had thought I’d need, either. No planning apps (I had downloaded Zap Map just in case). No range anxiety. Just plugging it in overnight and forgetting about it. When I worked out the cost, those 200 miles had used roughly £12 worth of electricity.

That’s the point where electric cars start making sense for a lot of families.

There was only one thing that consistently annoyed me throughout the weekend on what was otherwise a pretty flawless test drive, and that was the driver monitoring system. Every journey seemed to begin with the car deciding I either needed a rest or wasn’t looking at the road properly. Luckily, you can turn it off at the start of each journey and as we all know, most new cars suffer from the same issue. It’s ironic that this mandated safety system actually makes driving less safe, as it’s so distracting.

Apart from that, there was very little to complain about and a lot to appreciate.

What surprised me most wasn’t that the Atto 2 was good. It was that by the end of the weekend I’d stopped thinking about it altogether. It had simply become our family car for three days.

And perhaps that’s the highest praise I can give it.

The best family cars aren’t necessarily the ones you get excited about. They’re the ones that quietly make family life easier.

The BYD Atto 2 does exactly that.