BYD’s luxury brand builds a 1,582HP supercar to rival Europe’s best

Chinese performance cars are beginning to challenge the biggest names in the industry.

denja The Z Coupe is the new flagship of BYD’s premium brand, and the numbers it’s leading with aren’t subtle. A claimed output of 1,582 hp, acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.25 seconds and a top speed of 300 km/h.

The track-focused racing version reduces the sprint by two seconds and increases the top speed to 350 km/h. These are not the figures of any water testing brand. Those are figures from a brand that has decided it belongs in the same conversation as the cars it’s referencing.

RELATED: The Z9GT is Denza’s bid to give luxury buyers their Bond moment

It’s more than a fast EV

The hardware beneath the Z is worth looking beyond the headline output.

Built on a new version of BYD’s e3 platformIt uses three electric motors producing 915lb-ft of torque, magnetorheological suspension that adjusts in milliseconds, carbon-ceramic brakes and BYD’s first steer-by-wire system.

Power comes from a 76kWh lithium iron phosphate battery, which is a relatively compact pack for this level of performance.

The more impressive number is the charging speed. Using BYD’s flash charging technology, the company claims the battery can go from 10 to 97 percent in nine minutes when connected to its new 1,500kW charger.

Connected: BYD thinks Australia is important enough to get its own car

BYD is planning around 300 ultra-fast chargers across the UK by the end of the year, which makes sense because a supercar that charges in the time it takes to get a coffee is a really different ownership proposition to a supercar that requires an hour to plug in to motorway services.

The cabin gets an 8.9-inch digital instrument display, a 12.8-inch central touchscreen and a simulated engine soundtrack. Denza has not confirmed whether it will feature a virtual gearbox, similar to systems introduced by Hyundai and later adopted by Porsche, but the overall specification presents it as a driver’s car rather than a technology showcase that goes fast.

Price puts it right where BYD wants to be

Prices start at around £143,000 (~$273,000 AUD) for the coupe, going up to £160,000 (~$310,000 AUD) for the Spider and reaching £173,000 (~$335,000 AUD) for the racing version.

That bracket puts the Denza Z directly in line with Porsche, Ferrari and McLaren rather than anywhere near the mainstream EV market, which is a deliberate statement of where BYD sees the brand going.

RELATED: The Supercar Has Lost What Made It Special

Denza does not need to oversell Z. Hello, cars rarely move. The job is to focus the conversation on what a Chinese luxury brand is capable of, and a six-figure electric supercar that charges in nine minutes and cruises along at a 2.25-second pace is a harder thing to dismiss than another affordable EV with good range numbers.

BYD’s premium ambitions have progressed rapidly. A few years ago the brand was primarily known for competitively priced electric cars. Now it includes Denza and Yangwang making six-figure vehicles that are clearly designed to compete on the world stage.

The Z is the clearest expression of that ambition yet, and should it meet the claimed figures in independent testing, it will be the real moment of truth when the cars reach buyers.

For now, the fact that a Chinese supercar costing upwards of £140,000 can be discussed in the same breath as the cars it is targeting is in itself a significant change from where things were even three years ago.