BYD Qin

Byd does not build many cars like the BYD Qin: a 4-door sedan with 1.5 L BYD476ZQA I4, built from 2012 as electrification stopped being an experiment and the crossover took every market.

How it came about

The BYD Qin (Chinese: 比亚迪秦, after the Qin dynasty) is a series of compact and mid-size sedans produced by BYD Auto since 2012. The Qin started out as the plug-in hybrid version of the BYD Surui, and was introduced in the Chinese market in August 2012. Currently, the Qin is available as a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), battery electric vehicle (BEV), and previously an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. The Qin is the successor of the BYD F3DM, the world's first mass-produced PHEV automobile which launched in China in 2008. In April 2012, BYD replaced the F3DM with the Qin.

The first-generation Qin is the PHEV version of the BYD Surui (the second-generation BYD F3), and deliveries in China began in December 2013. The second generation model includes two variants was released in September 2018 as the BYD Qin Pro, which was available as an ICE vehicle, PHEV and BEV. In 2021, this model was updated and renamed to BYD Qin Plus with PHEV and BEV variants. An updated version of the first generation is sold alongside the second generation Qin variants. In 2024 March, BYD released a larger, mid-size Qin variant marketed as the BYD Qin L DM-i, which is solely equipped with the DM-i 5.0 PHEV powertrain. In 2025, a battery electric counterpart was introduced as the BYD Qin L EV.

The hardware

Under the skin sits 1.5 L BYD476ZQA I4. The gearbox is a 6-speed DCT. The wheelbase is 2670 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Family and rivals

Where it sits in Byd's history is not in doubt: the BYD F3DM came before it. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Mazda CX-5, the Peugeot 208, the Tesla Model X. Its Byd stablemates include the BYD 8TT and the BYD Atto 2.