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Yangwang U8 prototype review: the tank-turning, 1,180bhp goliath
A Yang-what-now?
Yangwang is a new premium brand, arriving on the crest of a wave caused by the success of parent company BYD. While it represents an obvious step upmarket, it’s perhaps a little reductive to say Yangwang is the Lexus to BYD’s Toyota, not least when this U8 SUV intends to swim in a different pool. All too literally…
Priced at the equivalent of £120,000 in its native China, it’s BYD punching upwards. See one up close and you might assume it warrants such a sizeable price tag in materials alone. It measures a vast 5.3 metres in length, over 2m in width and tips the scales at 3,460kg – nearly enough to warrant a driving licence upgrade for Brits who passed their test after 1997.
How on earth does it weigh so much?
Befitting its halo status, the Yangwang U8 has had all manner of technology thrown at it. The powertrain is heavily electrified, with a 295bhp electric motor at each wheel for a monstrous 1,180bhp total. The battery capacity is a modest 49kWh, however, with most of the U8’s power instead provided by a 268bhp 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. It acts purely as a range extender and isn’t connected to the wheels.
Yangwang claims a total range of around 620 miles on the Chinese test cycle, of which just 112 is yielded purely by electricity. The battery can still be topped up independently, though, accepting up to 110kW of DC charge for an 80 per cent top up in under half an hour. You’d be strolling around motorway services a whole lot longer if the U8 packed the necessary cells to be a pure EV.
Wondering what those three, taxicab-like protrusions above the windscreen are? They comprise 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.
Wait, doesn’t this car do tricks?
You sound like someone who’s been somewhere near the internet in the last few weeks. A wheel at each motor gives the U8 its TikTok-pleasing party trick; its maker calls it ‘vehicle origin turn’ but it’s more colloquially known as ‘tank turn’. It resembles a low-key donut as the vehicle spins up to 360 degrees on the spot thanks to the motors on one side of the car turning slowly in the opposite direction to the others.
It looks bizarre from the outside and feels even more discombobulating inside, but if your brain has anything like the mechanical sympathy of ours, you’ll soon be fearing for the diffs and tyres. The new electric Mercedes G-Wagen will do much the same thing, it’s worth adding, albeit there it’s called a ‘G-Turn’.
Is it fair to say there are hints of G in the styling, too?
Yup. New-age Defender and Kia EV9 too, perhaps. But I still don’t think you’ll mistake the U8 for anything else, its lighting signatures bordering on ostentatious. It makes a bold statement from every angle, but it needs substance to back those up.
That arrives in body-on-frame construction that’s 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 goliath over rough stuff. Claimed 36deg approach and 35.4deg departure angles ally with the individual wheel control yielded by BYD’s new e4 electrified platform to give the U8 some proper off-road flex….
Rea More https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/yangwang-u8-suv-review-2024
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