Driving experience
The ride is surprisingly soft, which makes for cushy motoring on urban roads, but it doesn’t encourage spirited driving on twisty roads as the car tends to roll around slightly. It all depends on your preferred style of driving — comfort or sporty. I suspect most folk will be happy with the compromise of a cosseting ride on pothole-ridden urban roads and sling-shot performance off the line. Motorway cruising is extremely relaxed, and at 70mph, there’s hardly any wind or road noise.
Town driving is a doddle thanks to the extremely light steering. You don’t get much feedback to let you know what the front wheels are doing, but twiddling the wheel through tight streets is simplicity itself.
Range & charging times
The all-important question for any electric car is how far it can travel on a full charge. The Sealion 7 is middling in this respect. The entry-level, single motor, Comfort model can officially manage 300 miles. The most I saw in decidedly chilly, wintry weather was 256 miles. The Design model, which uses the same battery but has all-wheel drive, shaves some mileage off the total to give an estimated 283 miles.
The best model, in terms of mileage, is the Excellence version because it gets a bigger battery and therefore can officially manage 312 miles. You’ll manage a 10-80 per cent charge in about 23 minutes on a rapid charger.
If you make full use of the available performance, as with a conventionally powered car, your available mileage will suffer. Pootle around town on a warm summer’s day, and you’ll achieve higher figures.
Interior
As I mentioned earlier, the Sealion 7 is a good-looking car with plenty of showroom appeal. Hop inside and, if you’ve enjoyed the exterior, you’ll love what you find. It’s all rather plush and roomy, very roomy. There’ll be no complaints from any 6-footers about a lack of knee room in the rear. And the 520 litres of boot space is also impressive.
You also get a seriously impressive list of standard kit. Every model gets sat nav, DAB radio, excellent sound system, LED headlights, panoramic roof with electric sunshade, powered tailgate, faux quilted leather upholstery, powered front seats which include heating and ventilation, heated rear seats, lumber control for the driver’s seat, dual zone climate control, front and rear parking sensors, rear view camera, 10.25-inch driver display, 15.6-inch rotating centre touchscreen, and smartphone wireless charging. Not much else you need, really.
The only differences if you move up to the trim range are the provision of a head-up display, bigger alloys, real Nappa leather seats, and a choice of interior trim colours.
A quick word of praise for the seats. They look great, have plenty of support and are comfortable. Nice driving position too.
