A BYD Song Max, seen in Beijing in 2019. The Song Max is a compact MPV, launched in 2007. It is a classy and stylish car, designed by Wolfgang Egger, who earlier in his life worked for Alfa Romeo and Audi. The lights are especially nice, large and fitted with five separate LED’s. The lights morph nicely into the grille. This design language was called ‘Dragon Face’.
In that time, BYD had a brilliant new idea where they had the type-logos instead of brand logos. So the Song Max has the character Song (宋) on the grille. There is a smaller BYD badge on the left side.
The BYD Song Max is available with 6 or with 7 seats. There is only one engine; a 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine with an output of 160 hp and 245 Nm. The engine is mated to a six-speed manual or a six-speed DCT. The manual is pretty rare and sits only in the cheapest base model, which costs 94.800 yuan. Happily, the car we have here is a manual.
Song logo in the wheel.
A typical Chinese thing: odd lettering on cars saying odd things. This is between the C and D-pillar. ‘Space’.
The interior of the BYD Song Max is very nice. It has faux-leather seats and faux-wood panels. Eye catcher is the enormous 12.8 inch touch screen for the infotainment. This is by far the largest screen in the segment. Manual gearbox seems a bit at odds with such modernity. The funky seat covers are after-market.
BYD was the first Chinese car maker that developed serious filter systems against PM 2.5 air pollution, their first car to have such a system was the 2014 BYD S7. Since then, dozens of other Chinese car makers and the joint ventures have developed similar systems, so the air in Chinese cars in pretty clean these days, but BYD got it first.
Second row. A pillow with love. And a very handy, and very full, rear seat organizer. The seat is covered again, but only the flat part.
Large rear spoiler above the window and a shiny chrome bar connecting the lights.
The Song badge again. On its new cars, BYD has since stopped this car-model logo system, and again uses a brand-logo system (new) on its new cars. Car model logo’s were a nice idea, but likely not very good for BYD’s brand recognition.
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