Denza Z review: one flying lap in Denza’s UK-bound 1,582bhp supercar

Hang on, what’s that?

Busted! You’ve not been paying attention to TopGear.com, have you? This is the Denza Z, and it was unveiled in full just last week at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Essentially, it’s an all-electric 2+2 supercar from BYD’s posh sub-brand, and while it will cost over £15,000 less than a Porsche 911 GT3 when it goes on sale here later this year, it actually has more than three times the power.

Wait, what?!

That got your attention, didn’t it? The Z gets three electric motors (one on the front axle, two on the rear) to produce its astonishing 1,582bhp and 915lb ft of torque. It’ll come in three variants – Coupe, Spider and Racing – and all will get a 76kWh battery for a maximum of 254 miles of range.

So, you’ve driven it already?

We have, although we must stress that we’ve only driven the standard Coupe version for three laps at the Goodwood Motor Circuit. Out lap, one flying lap and a cool down. That was all Denza would allow us the day before the car’s big unveiling at the Duke’s motorsport-spec garden party. Given only six examples had made it over to the UK and they had to run up the hill all weekend, that was probably fair enough. Don’t bin it, don’t bin it, don’t bin it.

And yes, the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that these images were taken in the pitlane at Thruxton. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed a second lap at the UK’s fastest race circuit.

First impressions?

Well, it’s an EV with its battery under the floor, so you don’t sit that low. The rest of the cabin feels sporty though, with a flat-bottomed steering wheel that’s festooned with proper buttons and flanked by two large paddleshifters. These were disconnected in our car, and weirdly Denza couldn’t tell us whether they would be used to adjust regen or for a proper Ioniq 5 N-style fake gearbox. Let’s hope for the latter.

We also spied an ‘exhaust’ button as part of the row under the 12.8-inch infotainment screen, and while we’re yet to try out the sounds, we’re pleased to hear that there’s the option of fake engine noises or a sci-fi soundtrack. The Boost button on the steering wheel gives you 30 per cent more torque for 20 seconds at a time.

What about the way it drives?

As you’d expect with this much power onboard and a claimed 0-62mph time of 2.25 seconds (that’s for the Coupe, the Racing will do it in 1.96 seconds), it’s absurdly fast. Just thinking of extending your right toe results in a surge forward that’s so violent you’ve completed a quarter of a lap before you bring yourself back down to Earth.

Apply some throttle on the exit of a corner and you can feel the car’s torque vectoring shift power around to try and find some grip. It’s lively. There’s a proper drift mode too for big skids, although that was also off limits to us in this little taster session.

On our three laps the air suspension felt a little soft in its setup and given the Z weighs two tonnes it does roll a little through bends. Strong stopping power from the standard carbon ceramic brakes though, and the steering seemed to have some decent weight to it and the Z's front end was keen to turn in.

Anything else I need to know?

That’s probably as much as we can comment on for now, but head over to read the news story for the full tech specs. And remember, this thing is capable of charging at 1,500kW at BYD’s fancy Flash chargers, so if one was installed at your local circuit, you could genuinely manage a full track day. Well, if you brought a trailer full of tyres, that is.

We won’t give the Z a score out of 10 just yet, but there are promising signs with proper buttons in the cabin, magnetorheological dampers, ceramic brakes and even 250 litres of boot space. Plus, it really does go like the proverbial off a shovel.

Although perhaps that’s no surprise given another of BYD’s sub-brands now makes the fastest production car on the planet – the Yangwang U9 Xtreme. The Denza Z might just turn out to be a bargain version of that record-breaker…