Can BYD’s new crab-walking luxury car steal Porsche’s thunder?

If Audi, BMW and Mercedes thought they would have the ultra-luxury electric car market in Europe to themselves, they have another think coming.

New players are jumping on the upmarket bandwagon, which promises generous margins, especially carmakers from China.

On the heels of Nio and XPeng, comes Build Your Dreams (BYD) which is bringing its luxury offshoot Denza to Europe.

The first of initially four, and later up to eight, models will be the Z9 GT, which has clearly been inspired by the looks of both the Porsche Panamera and Taycan. With a price tag of around €100,000, it will probably just undercut its rivals.

The elegant shooting brake should go down particularly well in Germany since it was designed by former Audi chief designer Wolfgang Egger.

He has created a modern and opulent luxury saloon with strong European design influences. The Gran Turismo measures an impressive 5.20 metres in length, which gives it a whopping wheelbase of 3.13 metres. This should provide more cabin space than most of its European competitors, with significant benefits for rear seat passengers.

Chinese luxury is often about more passenger legroom – hence the booming long wheelbase market.

The large glass roof also creates a feeling of spaciousness, and the only obvious drawback is a boot with a rather average capacity of just under 500 litres.

Finely crafted and lavishly equipped, the interior of the Z9 GT reflects the Chinese penchant for digitalization.

In the front row, you face an almost all-round display and are dazzled by the flood of animated images. Fortunately, there is also a separate head-up display for when owners want to concentrate on the essentials – like driving this thing.

The Z9 GT has more razzmatazz than its Swabian role models. The BYD subsidiary counters austere Teutonic sportiness with significantly more comfort too. What is more, Chinese manufacturers have long since moved beyond simply copying other makes, even if some innovations are a tad eccentric.

Instead of just ordinary storage compartments, there is even a freezer cubby-hole on board which will stop those frozen goods from thawing on the way home from the supermarket.

Alternatively, to stop your frozen pizzas from going soggy, you could also just put your foot down. The Z9 GT has up to 710 kW/966 horsepower on tap and reaches a maximum speed of 240 km/h.

Other features include the unusual ability to «crab walk» or slide sideways into tight parking spaces.

The wheels can toe-in, both rotating towards the centre of the vehicle, or toe-out, rotating away from the centre. The latter allows the car to pivot around its front axle, resulting in a turning circle similar to a city runabout.

This could be useful if you get into a tight spot downtown, but seem rather pointless in everyday use. It just serves to show how eager the Chinese are to make this car different from its legacy competitors.

The new car’s steering is light and accurate, though Denza’s implementation of rear-wheel steering may need some fine tuning. When pressed on fast roads the car is tight and poised.

BYD is also keeping its drive options open.

The Gran Turismo can be ordered as a pure electric vehicle, or as a plug-in hybrid. Two electric motors, each with 299 hp (220 kW), are permanently acting on the rear axle, while at the front there is a choice of a third magnetic motor with 313 hp (230 kW) or a 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine with 272 hp (200 kW).

The plug-in hybrid has a 38.5 kWh battery with a range of around 200 kilometres, while the electric version is expected to have a range of around 630 kilometres with a 100-kWh battery.

This is nothing special for a luxury electric barge. However, the makers also want to outperform the competition when it comes to charging. The Z9 is set to be the first car in Europe to feature flash charging.

This technology enables charging capacities of up to 1,000 kW, allowing the Denza to suck enough power for 400 kilometres in just five minutes. As yet, the infrastructure for this is lacking so BYD wants to install 300 high-speed charging stations in Europe by the summer.

There is no word, however, on how long the batteries will withstand this level of charging before they need to be replaced.

Weaning customers off the German market leaders has never been easy, and one key factor will be the lack of a strong dealer network in Europe.

With the backing of its parent company BYD, Denza may well have a good chance of proving that the Chinese marque stands for quality as well as quantity.

Specifications: Denza Z9 GT