I took delivery this afternoon. It’s running software version 1.0, so it doesn’t have the fixes, Android Auto, etc from newer software versions. It also doesn’t have mobile data active yet. This apparently comes after they send delivery confirmation through to BYD and the mothership acknowledges that the car belongs to a customer now. Trying to update it on wifi doesn’t work, it just claims it’s on the current version.

First impression: it’s quiet. It’s just quiet all the time. Not just when you’re rolling down a hill or along a flat, but accelerating up a hill. There’s no engine noise.

Yes, I know there’s no engine noise because there’s no engine, but this point bears repeating. For the entire first hour, I drove around town with the A/C fan on low and music turned off just listening to the absence of noise. It’s quiet.

The silence makes driving it feel effortless. There’s no roaring engine, you accelerate up a steep hill and it just smoothly glides up the hill. Not even the hitch of an automatic transmission switching gears, it just smoothly accelerates from zero to the speed limit.

I knew there were no gears and I knew EVs didn’t have engine noise, but somehow I just wasn’t ready for a car to silently glide up a hill.