2024 BYD Yangwang U8 review

There seems to be no stopping BYD right now. Sales are soaring and its line-up is swelling, so perhaps it’s only natural that such success has bred enough confidence to launch a luxury offshoot.

It’s probably reductive shorthand to say Yangwang is the Lexus to BYD’s Toyota when this Yangwang U8 SUV aims to swim in a different pool entirely (all too literally, as you’ll discover). Priced at the equivalent of $230,000 in its native China, this truly is evidence BYD is punching upwards.

See one up close and you might assume it’s worth its stocky price in materials alone, so vast is the U8. It measures 5.3 in length, over 2m in width and tips the scales at 3460kg – almost enough to warrant additional training and a driving licence upgrade in some territories.

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JUMP AHEAD

• How does the Yangwang U8 weigh so much?
• So what’s the point?
• So you haven’t tried that feature out…
• When will we see this monster in Australia?

How does the Yangwang U8 weigh so much?

It’s had a heck of a lot of technology thrown at it. As you’d expect with BYD paying the bills, the powertrain is heavily electrified.

There’s a 220kW electric motor at each wheel for a monstrous 880kW total. The battery capacity, though, is just 49kWh; most of the U8’s power comes from a 200kW 2-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that acts as a range extender.

So while Yangwang claims an overall range figure of 1000km, just 180km of that can be achieved purely on electric power. The battery can still be topped up separately, though, accepting up to 110kW of DC charge.

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Which means charging up to 80 per cent in under half an hour, something that simply wouldn’t be possible with the amount of cells you’d need to make this a pure EV.

A wheel at each motor gives this car its TikTok-pleasing party trick; dubbed by Yangwang as the ‘vehicle origin turn’ – or ‘tank turn’ in internet parlance – the vehicle can spin up to 360 degrees on the spot as the motors on one side of the car turn slowly in the opposite direction to the others.

It looks bewitching from outside, feels even crazier inside, but will soon gnaw at the chunk of your brain that’s predisposed to mechanical sympathy. Surely the diffs and tyres can’t be enjoying themselves as much as your audience?

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So what’s the point?

Well, the U8 has already claimed its Instagram moment of fame and an all-new brand has found a large (if fickle) audience before the car’s even launched. So the job’s arguably done.

Tank turns are the glistening cherry on top of this car’s proposed off-road ability.

Its body-on-frame construction is allied to over a dozen electronically controlled all-terrain modes and a whole array of suspension settings that, if the teaser videos are to be believed, will make this thing a true monster away from smooth tarmac.

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Its 36-degree approach and 35.4-degree departure angles ally with the individual wheel control yielded by BYD’s new e4 platform to make this a properly flexible off-road tool, albeit one draped in thick layers of interior tech and luxury.

Unlike the now ironically named Dolphin and Seal, this car actually swims, too; get yourself too deep into a body of water and the car can apparently float for up to 30 minutes, with its appropriately sealed electric propulsion system whizzing away below the surface to direct you safely back to shore.

It’s not another party trick, rather an emergency back-up that calls for an immediate trip to the dealer should you ever activate it.

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So you haven’t tried that feature out…

No, and our first go of this 4x4 goliath actually took place on a race circuit. Goodwood Motor Circuit, in fact, one of the fastest and fiercest tracks in Great Britain owing to its antiquated ideas of ‘run off’ and ‘margin for error’.

Truly an odd place to throw around almost 3.5 tonnes of decadent 4x4, but owing to how early our access to the car is, the required homologation for on-road driving wasn’t possible. And the UK is a little bereft of sand dunes to idly bash…

The result was entirely predictable, the car’s stability control systems cutting in starkly even with the U8 in its sportiest modes and our cornering speeds and steering inputs kept subtle. Trigger the safety systems and a ‘cornering speed too high’ warning blazes across the digital dial display.

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Yet the continuously adaptive damping and the torque vectoring capabilities of the e4 setup ensured the U8 wasn’t a total shambles. Out of its depth, sure. But a circa 3-tonne Range Rover Hybrid would hardly have felt like a trackday special beside it.

What was disappointing was how little of the full 880kW output we managed to extract, the power display on the dashboard rarely showing north of 400kW even as we kept our foot welded to the floor down the Lavant Straight.

Either the claimed 3.6sec sprint to 100km/h is reserved for a designated launch or the struggling battery power after sustained laps couldn’t entertain it, however much the engine was buzzing away in the background.

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We eagerly await a much more in-depth drive to truly dig into the U8’s menus and its slightly dizzying drive modes.

Indeed, tech has been wantonly thrown at the U8. Those three, taxicab-like protrusions above the windscreen contain spotlights, night vision and a Lidar that scans the road ahead to educate the adaptive damping as well as open up the potential for autonomy.

The interior is festooned with screens, with three across the dashboard – the central 12.8in display being a 2K curved OLED – and a pair to luxuriate rear passengers. The Nappa leather is smart and we don’t even mind the retro wood inlays. While not quite knocking on the door of a Bentley for interior ambience, it all feels legit for Yangwang’s blockbuster launch car.

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When will we see this monster in Australia?

While the Yangwang U8 is doing well in China, shifting almost 4000 units so far, sales outside of its homeland are still somewhat TBC.

Our improbable Goodwood trackday (in a left-hand-drive car) was part of BYD sticking its toe in the water to gauge reaction. A reaction is certainly what it’s achieved across the plains of social media.

Quite how it navigates both the real world and rougher terrain will decide just how much we crave the U8’s stocky presence on Aussie soil (and sand, and rocks, and water…). Be sure to let us know where your heart currently lies in the comments box below.

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