This new Chinese EV has some mad party tricks for parking: we test them all

BYD’s posh sub-brand Denza will land properly in the UK later this year, with its shooting brake-style Z9 GT set to reach customers in October. But what actually is a Denza? Well, it describes itself as a “premium technology-oriented automotive brand”, but the Z9 GT – available as either a 1,140bhp EV or a 765bhp plug-in hybrid – could well be marketed as a “Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo for people that can’t park”, such is the array of self-parking tech on board.

But does any of it really work? Can we ditch both bay and parallel parking from the UK’s driving test and all just waft around in Denzas, or are these all gimmicks that you’ll use once to show off to your mates and then forget about forever more?

Well, we’re yet to drive the Z9 GT ourselves on UK roads, but we have sat in the cabin and experienced all of the clever autonomous manoeuvres, so here’s our verdict on each party trick…

Self-parking

Much like many other cars on sale, the Z9 GT will identify a parking space and manoeuvre itself into it, whether that be parallel or into a bay in a car park. It’s all very smooth and can be accessed quickly using an actual button on the dash followed by two presses of the big 17.3in central touchscreen.

The Denza is pretty good at spotting spaces even when the lines are faded or the bay is at a funny angle, but even if it doesn’t pick it up you can select any spot by using the bird’s eye view camera to drag and drop where you’d like to end up and which direction you want to be facing. Neat. Plus, if the space is tight there’s remote parking so you can jump out and let the car park itself using the app.

Toe-out Rotation

Denza could do with coming up with a snappier name for this, because it’s a pretty neat trick. If a parallel space is only just long enough to squeeze in the near 5.2m long Z9 GT, it’ll drive itself nose in and then use its individual rear-wheel steer to point both wheels outwards. It’ll then drive the rears in opposite directions in order to moonwalk the car’s rear end towards the kerb. Heehee!

It’s an eerie sight to behold as it slides into position, but it genuinely does work and opens up access to tight inner-city parking. Just don’t ask about tyre wear, and don’t mention the Brooks Walker fifth wheel from the 1930s.

Crab Walk

In this mode both of the Z9 GT’s rear wheels follow the direction of the fronts at an angle of up to 8.5 degrees, so the car can trundle forwards and backwards diagonally like a sort of automotive bishop (the chess piece, not a member of the clergy). From inside the Nappa leather-trimmed cabin it’s an odd sensation, but we spent most of our time crab walking wondering when we’d ever need to deploy this particular skill. This one’s a miss.

Compass Turn

The Z9 GT’s most dramatic party trick is its Compass Turn. Much like the toe-out rotation parallel parking, this spins the rear wheels in opposite directions and drives one of the fronts in reverse to rotate the car completely around its own axis. Fed up of doing nine-point turns down dead-ends? Just pull up, select the function on the screen and tell the car how far you’d like it to spin.

Ideally 180 degrees if you want to get out of a tight spot, but for some reason it’ll go right up to 360-degrees, at which point you’ll be back in the same spot in which you started, but with a whole lot less tread on your tyres. We grew up learning not to turn the steering wheel when the car was stationary to save unnecessary tyre wear, so sitting in the Denza as it did this on the rough tarmac of the Goodwood Motor Circuit paddock was quite a painful experience.