Would you buy a supercar or a Range Rover rival from BYD? Chinese upstart launches its own high-end luxury marque - but the prices might surprise you!

BYD isn’t messing around, soaring to stratospheric heights over the course of 2022. Not only did it launch its first mainstream model in Australia - the Atto 3 - to great success, but its scale is now unprecedented globally.

To give you an idea, the Build Your Dreams brand is the second largest EV brand in the world, selling a whopping 911,140 EVs in the last year alone, behind only Tesla (which managed to move over 1.3 million units).

What better time for the brand to follow in the footsteps of giants past and launch a premium spin-off brand?

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BYD is doing just that with its new YangWang (which translates to ‘looking up’) marque, but this is no mainstream luxury offering like Lexus. Chinese media is expecting the first two models, the U8 large off-roader and U9 supercar, to go on sale with price-tags exceeding ¥1,000,000, which translates to over $200,000 AUD.

To back these over-the-top price tags, the two YangWang models will use a quad-motor architecture, with each individual unit putting out 200-240kW and 320-420Nm, allowing the SUV to sprint to 100km/h in just three seconds, or the supercar to reach the same in two seconds. The four-motor system is also said to improve handling and safety through true four-wheel torque vectoring, whilst also allowing the U8 off-roader additional control in loose-grip scenarios.

The U8 has a ‘crab’ driving mode, allowing it to spin the wheels at different rates, and ‘turn’ or ‘strafe’ and will be imposing in size at 5.3 metres long, and over two metres wide, with over three metres in its wheelbase.

The U9 sports an extreme design language not usually seen out of Chinese automakers, complete with dazzling front and rear LED light clusters, gullwing doors, and an odd fin-shaped object protruding from its rear window.

BYD did not reveal any more detailed specifications about either car, such as battery capacity or range, but overseas media is reporting the SUV at least is due for a launch to the Chinese market in the first half of 2023.

The U8 off-roader is able to accelerate from 0-100km/h in just three seconds.

In Australia, BYD’s next move will be to release a small hatchback model to sit below the Atto 3, and a Tesla Model-3 rivalling sedan to sit above. A larger fully electric SUV is also expected to join the lineup in the future.

Not only that, but BYD’s local distributor confirmed to CarsGuide that the brand is working on a ute (like the one spotted in the wild in November 2022), and that it was being engineered to Australian standards. It would also be tested in Australia during 2023, alongside the small hatch and sedan confirmed for our market. The price? BYD wouldn’t say, but confirmed “price competitiveness” would be critical.