I drove this £120,000 super-SUV to find out if Chinese car brands can do luxury yet

We’re really familiar now with Chinese car brands building cheap cars – often really well. But can these huge car manufacturers really build premium and luxury cars to compete with the very top end of the European market?

To find out, I’ve spent some time with this. It’s called the Yangwang U8, and it’s an offshoot of BYD – one of the largest car manufacturers in the world. In the UK, we’re more familiar with BYD for its cheap ‘n’ cheerful models such as the Dolphin Surf and the Seal U – but the Yangwang U8 costs more than £120,000 in its home market, and would be more expensive still if it were to be sold in Europe.

That’s more than you’ll pay for a Range Rover, and it’s even getting dangerously close to the price of an entry-level Bentley Bentayga. But the U8 has some features that even the poshest European alternative wouldn’t dream of. Watch the video to see the whole lot, but here are some of the coolest highlights, plus a few things I didn’t like…

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1. It has over 1,000hp

Yep, you heard that right. The most powerful Range Rover has 635hp. The most powerful Bentley Bentayga has 641hp. Even the most powerful Lamborghini Urus has 789hp. The Yangwang blows all of them out of the water with a monstrous 1,196hp – yet it only has a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder engine.

That’s because the U8 is primarily an electric car – it has a 50kWh battery and a powerful electric motor on each wheel. The engine is just there to top up the battery and it never drives the wheels directly. I definitely felt the U8’s power underfoot – for such a huge car, it really gets going.

2. It can tank turn

Having an electric motor on each wheel lets you do things you couldn’t do with a conventional drivetrain. By turning the wheels in opposing directions, the U8 can perform a ‘tank turn’ – spinning on the spot, provided you’re on a loose surface. It’s certainly a feature that could be useful off-road, though given the U8’s size it might also come in handy in a tight car park…

3. It can swim… no, really

The U8 isn’t a full-on amphibious car – there’s no screw under the rear bumper, nor is there a mast that rises from the sunroof. But Yangwang says the car is so well-sealed that it can float for up to 30 minutes, while the spinning wheels give you enough propulsion to make it back to shore. It’s billed as an emergency feature rather than something you could use for a pleasure cruise, but if you live somewhere flood-prone it could be seriously reassuring.

4. Ultra-lux interior

You can’t accuse Yangwang of doing things by halves on the inside. The U8 has a screen for every passenger, all super-crisp and running a snappy interface. All of the seats are heated, cooled and massaging, and the ones in the second row get a cool ‘zero-gravity’ recline mode. There are three wireless charging pads, three built-in fragrance diffusers, super-posh materials throughout, and design details that wouldn’t look out of place in a European luxury model. It’s pretty impressive.

And the not-so-good features…

1. It looks like a Defender clone

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Land Rover should be pleased as punch, because the U8 is just one of a large number of Chinese off-roaders that mimic the look of the iconic Defender.

In the U8’s case it looks like the styling team started with a Defender and then added extra chintz – it has chrome everywhere, extra styling tweaks and a distinctive headlight design. It definitely looks purposeful, but it’s a shame Yangwang couldn’t come up with something a bit more original.

2. It weighs nearly 3.5 tonnes

At a massive 3,460kg, the Yangwang U8 is a truly enormous vehicle. That’s almost 1,000kg heavier than the biggest extended-wheelbase Bentley Bentayga or Land Rover Defender 130.

It’s actually heavy enough to be problematic in the UK, because once you’ve added a driver it weighs so much that you need the C1 category on your driving licence, which you only have if you got your licence before January 1997 or if you take an additional driving test.

3. There’s no badge kudos – and that matters

Buying a Range Rover or a Bentley isn’t just about the engineering, it’s what it says about you. Yangwang doesn’t have any heritage at all – the brand was only introduced in 2023 – and so convincing high-end luxury buyers to drop more than £120,000 on a totally unknown name is very difficult to do.

While the U8 might turn some heads in the company car park through its size and styling alone, it isn’t going to look ‘right’ outside a golf club or a Monte Carlo hotel like the more established European luxury cars do. It’s going to take a few brave punters to take the plunge before that happens.

So overall, do I think the Yangwang U8 is a credible alternative to those cars? Well, you’ll have to watch the full video to find out.

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