Yangwang teases new luxury sedan – BYD’s Rolls-Royce rival to feature suicide doors, solid-state battery

Not content with building the world’s fastest production car, BYD’s ultra-high-end offshoot Yangwang is taking on Rolls-Royce in its bid for industry domination. The company is hard at work developing a flagship luxury sedan, as seen in these images the company’s general manager Hu Xiaoqing shared on Weibo.

Not much is known officially, save for its internal codename HU (no relation, surely?). However, the images gives us a glimpse of what the car will look like, even if the camouflage obscures much of the design details.

As you can see, the car is very long, certainly well north of five metres. The styling carries all the tropes of big-car design – an upright body (not quite as upright as a Rolls-Royce, but still), thick C-pillars and, of course, RR-style suicide doors. The wheels are surprisingly small for such a vehicle, however, at only 21 inches in diameter.

Very much unlike the U7, which lifts its design language from the U9 supercar, this new model (U10?) takes after the U8 SUV instead. The headlights feature a wavy design said to be inspired by a celestial gate and, on this particular model, come with jewel-like projectors and frosted light signatures.

As yet, it is unclear if the car is fully electric like the U7 and U9, or a range-extended EV like the U8. The long bonnet suggests it hides an engine underneath; however, it’s also been reported by Autohome that it will feature BYD’s first solid-state battery, hinting at a long range without the need of a generator. It should also support the carmaker’s new 1,500 kW Flash Charging technology, allowing it to be topped up from 10 to 70% in just five minutes.

The news comes as BYD prepares Yangwang for an global rollout, following in the footsteps of Denza. The brand has already launched in the Middle East earlier and is planned to enter Europe and the UK next year, according to Autocar.