BYD has officially unveiled the European version of the Denza Z at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. CEO of BYD, Stella Li, and former F1 champion Jenson Button took the wraps off the sports car that intends to go head-to-head with the Porsche 911. Or rather, the Maserati GranTurismo Folgore. Because the driveline is fully battery-powered.
The Denza Z comes in three flavors: Coupé, Spider, and Racing. All will launch at once, with sales starting in the coming weeks and deliveries expected by the end of the year.
There’s no pricing for Belgium yet, but the starting point of £142.900 (€167.430) in the UK firmly puts it in the territory of the German and Italian sports cars.
Three electric motors
The layout is a single front motor and one motor per rear wheel, for a total of three. The result? 0-100 kph in 2.2 seconds for the Coupé, 2.3 for the Spider, and 2.2, or 1.9 with optional semi-slick tires, for the Racing. Top speed is 300 kph for the road cars and 350 kph for the Racing, on those same sticky shoes.
But the battery is where it gets properly interesting. The Z uses BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery, a 76 kWh lithium-iron-phosphate pack integrated via cell-to-body 2.0 architecture. Range is 410 km WLTP for the Coupé, 400 km for the Spider, and 380 km for the Racing. Surely not world-beating, but respectful for the sort of car.
Flash charging at… 1,500 kW
The charging, though, is from another planet. The Denza Z bets on BYD’s Flash Charging system, which peaks at 1,500 kW through a single connector and 800V technology.
Charging from 10 to 70% takes five minutes; from 10 to 97% takes nine minutes. Even at -30° Celsius, 20-97% is done in twelve minutes. That is not ‘fast charging’ anymore, that is simply refueling. In that respect, it’s very much like a 911.
Underneath the sleek skin sits the e3 Sports Car Platform, developed exclusively for Denza. It pairs a double-wishbone front suspension with a multi-link rear suspension and DiSus-M magnetorheological dampers. The Coupé and Spider get air suspension; the Racing makes do with coil springs because track people don’t race on air.
The Z also marks the debut of the world’s first 15-in-1 integrated electric drive unit, housing the twin rear motors, reduction gears, OBC, DC-DC converter, VCU, BMS, and more in a single package that spins up to 30,000 rpm.
A Vehicle Motion Control hub acts as the central nervous system, with a claimed signal transmission time of 10 milliseconds. That is the kind of latency that will need to mask the battery’s excess weight. Gross weight starts at 2.230 kilograms.
Still practical
There is even a tire-burst control system that detects a blowout and redistributes torque in milliseconds to keep the car stable. And yes, it can do a ‘compass turn’ – locking the front wheels and spinning the rears around them like a tank. It’s a party trick, of course, in the same category as Yangwang’s U8 sports car, which can jump.
Despite the supercar stats, the Z is 4,780 mm long with a 2,780 mm wheelbase. It seats four. The trunk holds 250 liters, or 550 liters with the rear seats folded.
There is a 12.8-inch infotainment screen, an 8.88-inch digital instrument cluster, a Devialet sound system, massaging front seats, and Google Built-in. The rear seats in the Racing can be deleted in favor of a roll cage.
The design of the Z is certainly dramatic, with an S-shaped airflow path through the nose to manage drag, downforce, and heat simultaneously. The Racing variant adds a carbon-fiber front splitter, underfloor vortex generators, and an optional three-position adjustable rear wing that generates up to 1,060 kg of downforce at 350 kph. BYD says there’s also a Special Edition in the making as the ultimate track machine.
