Denza B5 review: is this Defender wannabe a serious off-roader?

B5? Wasn’t he on Star Wars?

No no, that’s BB-8. This is a small SUV from Denza, one of the many brands that live under the BYD umbrella. It’s a purposeful hybrid that’s a sort of angrier-looking take on a Land Rover Defender. It’s packing a turbocharged 1.5-litre motor hooked up to a couple of electric motors and a 31.8kWh battery. The system fires an impressive 677bhp and 561lb ft to all four wheels, and its drive modes are tuned to take on just about any terrain or eventuality.

What’s a Denza anyway?

It’s the executive arm of BYD. Think BMW, Merc, Porsche, Audi, etc and you’re in the right ballpark. Except being one of the many BYD companies, it’s covered in tech and toys to keep everyone entertained. Its Z9 GT has already shown promise.

Is it a serious off-roader, or does it just look the part?

It seems to have the chops. TG was shown the car at BYD’s custom off-road demo course in Zhengzhou, and it acquitted itself wonderfully. There’s a small caveat there that the course was almost certainly designed to make the firm’s cars shine their shiniest, so the chances of us catching it out were pretty slim.

What can it do?

The test route had a bit of everything on it, but nothing that showed off things like straight-line speed and performance. While Denza says it’ll take 4.8 seconds to get from 0-62mph, we didn’t see it. What we did see though was plenty of angles. The man from Denza took us around first, making the car lean precariously along steep banks, balance itself on two wheels, and gently crawl up a steep ramp, and at no point fall over.

Does it need to be in specific modes to do things?

For some things, yes, but mostly no. Your gentle slither across a soggy playing field doesn’t require a precise combination of buttons to get it to drive – leave it in its auto mode and it’ll merrily clamber up ’n’ over most things without complaining too much at all.

Clamber?

Yup. If you’ve got some banking between you and home, some unevenly placed lumps in the road or miles of potholes getting in the way – or even a short set of stairs to drive down –just point the B5 at ‘em and you’re golden. On the banking front, the man from Denza gleefully said it could lean more than 30 degrees before falling over, so if you’ve an overwhelming desire to park at strange angles you can get away with quite a bit without fear. When it comes to sharp inclines and such, there’s a handy ‘Crawl’ mode to pop it in. Slip it in there, point it up or down the hill you want to tackle, and all you need to do is steer.

What about visibility?

It’s not the best in the world if you just want to rely on windows. The glasshouse is quite small, all told, so relying on just your eyes can be tricky. Thankfully there are cameras all over the car, meaning you can see every angle of the thing on the central display, even underneath the hood. It’s all terribly clever and seems rather impressive.

Seems?

Denza appears to have the off-road cred of Land Rover, Jeep, and co in its sights, which is ambitious given the legacy of those brands. Getting the three of them together on something that isn’t a custom-built off-road track will be the true test – we’ll find out in 2026 when the B5 and friends come to Europe.

Price: TBC
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged hybrid, 31.8kWh battery
Power: 677bhp, 561lb ft
Transmission: E-CVT
Weight: 2,890kg