How do you beat the best-known sports car with an EV? A Chiron-baiting power output is a good start…
Disorder would seem to be the main risk for BYD’s new premium brand Denza. Lack of cohesion, if you prefer. With a bluff, ladder-frame off-roader, a large seven-seat MPV, and a sleek executive shooting brake in it already, the firm’s product portfolio could, before long, look more like an odd sock drawer than a unified family of desirable electrified cars.
A focal point to gather attention around should certainly help address this; a true ‘hero model’. Enter the Denza Z sports car. Could this be the car to really grab the attention of the European public, and make us interested in ‘the Denza story’?
Well, it looks like a clever cross between a sports car, supercar and sleek grand tourer. It comes with a tri-motor, all-electric powertrain with suitably heroic performance potential. And, on price, it’s going right after the most revered sports car in the world. Taking notice now? Thought you might be.
Denza’s senior product planners and engineers make no bones about the fact that it was a certain Porsche they had in their sights when designing and engineering this 4.8-metre ‘2+2’-seater halo model. They don’t mean the Taycan.
Sure, it’s electric; and that’ll make it about as likely to be chosen by some sports car regulars as a seafood salad that’s been out in the sun for too long. But it’s the obvious choice for Denza; because BYD has some of the best battery, motor and charging technology in the world, develops most of it in-house, and quite understandably wants a way to show it off.
Of course, you could easily mistake this for a car with even greater performance ambitions. The motor layout certainly suggests so. The Z is powered by a pair of 456bhp permanent magnet motors at the rear axle (driving a wheel each ‘asymmetrically’), and a 671bhp one that drives the front. Peak power is therefore 1584bhp – which is well in advance of the ‘megawatt’ threshold that defined the very first electric hypercars (Rimac Concept One, Nio EP9). You might also have clocked that it’s even several bhp more than the Bugatti Chiron Supersport.
Under the Italianate bodywork (for which we can credit BYD Design Director Wolfgang Egger; Alfa Romeo 8C, etc) sits BYD’s ‘e3’ (pronounced ‘E Cube’) platform, however – shared with the larger Denza Z9 GT shooting brake.
That means the car has a unitary chassis ‘gigacasting’ (like a 911) rather than a monocoque ‘tub’ (like a supercar). The chassis makes room for one of BYD’s second-generation LFP ‘blade’ battery packs, worth 76kWh, within it; which works as a stressed part of it, and contributes to impressive torsional rigidity – albeit perhaps not the kind of low kerbweight you might expect of a sports car (2250kg).
Denza will offer three versions: Coupe, convertible Spider, and track-ready Racing (a special edition, engineered ostensibly to win the Nordschliefe lap record for production EVs back from the Manthey-kit Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, will also be made, but in very small numbers). They are priced from £142,900, £159,900 and £172,900, respectively, putting the Z squarely in Carrera 4 GTS territory (for want of a more technically similar reference point) and making this comfortably the most expensive car China has yet put on our shores.
In advance of the car’s public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this week, Denza graciously afforded us one flying lap of Goodwood circuit as a preliminary test; with an instructor in the passenger seat making sure we didn’t exceed its ‘recommended speed limit’, or experiment with the drive modes.
For that lap, we did at least get the Racing version, which uses steel coil suspension in replacement of the air springs of other models; magnetorheological dampers, too; and will be available with proper circuit-appropriate semi-slick tyres (although ours didn’t have those).
The test didn’t include much time for detailed impressions of the cabin. The driver’s seat felt quite softly padded, and a little short on purposeful support for a track-intended model. For a sports car, it could have been lower-set. The wider cabin contents looked and felt a little plasticky, in some places, given what you might expect for a six-figure price tag; but nothing was particularly, conspicuously cheap.
After a warm-up lap, Goodwood circuit gives you only four or five places where you can open the accelerator wide; which isn’t many when you’ve got nearly 1600 horsepower to account for. I’m not fully convinced that the Denza Z felt quite that powerful.
The car has surprisingly progressive power delivery, seemingly feeding torque through gradually. To me, it didn’t quite seem to have that really titanic, super-linear throttle feel of other 1000bhp+ EVs I’ve tested -despite working up a very rapid head of steam in any case. This may have been because the car’s road tyres couldn’t transmit the necessary traction on track, and the car’s governing electronics were dampening its responses.
By sports car standards, the Z also seemed to lack a little bit of simple agility and willingness to change direction, perhaps on account of its heft. The car’s tri-motor powertrain felt a little reigned in and closely governed by its electronics. It didn’t seem able to rotate the car with power, or add much directional impetus to the car’s handling; in the default driving mode in which we were able to test it, at least.
This wasn’t the most promising start from BYD’s bold electric sports car, then. The Denza Z clearly has much to reveal yet. This first ‘test’ was hardly a test at all, obliged as we were to take the opportunity and learn what we could. Had we been able simply to drive without so much oversight and interference, and experiment just a little more, we might well have unearthed a great deal more than a rather staid, perfunctory top-level dynamic character.
For what we could discover and what it’s worth at this stage – which isn’t much – the Denza Z doesn’t seem to be the most forthcoming, appetising, accessibly entertaining driver’s car. Here’s hoping we find evidence later that it has an agenda for more than just outright speed.
Denza Z Racing
Verdict: BYD’s premium-brand 911 chaser has all the firepower it needs, but may lack some simple, accessible dynamic entertainment factor and sporting verve
Specification
Details
Price
£172,900
Engine
3 x AC synchronous, permanent magnet motors (1 x front; 2 x rear)
Power
1584bhp
Torque
915lb ft
Gearbox
Single-speed reduction ratio, per motor
Kerb Weight
2250kg
0-62mph
1.96sec
Top Speed
217mph
Battery
76kWh
Range and economy
236 miles, tbc
CO2 and BIK tax band
0g/km, 4%
Key rivals
Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, Maserati Granturismo Folgore
