BYD Denza Z is a hot electric 911 fighter

BYD’s premium brand has unwrapped a concept for an all-new battery-powered four-seat sports car designed to compete with the Porsche 911 and on first appearance, the 2025 Denza Z looks ready for production.

Packing a low and sporty stance, an aggressive front splitter, extended side skirts, huge rear spoiler and large diffuser, the sleek two-door Denza Z will be offered as both a coupe and convertible.

Featuring compact Porsche 911-like proportions, the Z gets both frameless doors and hidden door releases – with the latter potentially replaced by traditional handles for production.

Inside, there’s full carbon-fibre bucket seats wrapped in faked suede and leather with four-point harnesses, a digital instrument cluster, freestanding touchscreen and a floating centre console that houses the gear shifter and more switchgear.

Enhancing safety, the squared-off steering wheel is said to fold during an impact, creating extra space during a collision.

Built to show off BYD and Denza's state-of-the-art technologies, the Denza Z gets a steer-by-wire system designed to make for smoother more refined handling on road, while adding greater precision and steering responses on track.

The Denza Z’s trump card however is BYD’s latest Disis-M active suspension that is claimed to be “the industry’s first intelligent magnetorheological body control system exclusively for new energy vehicles”.

Capable of scanning the road ahead and reacting to changes in road surfaces in less than 10 milliseconds, the latest Disus-M could be the key piece of tech that could see the Z beat the 911 on track when it comes to stability and high-speed cornering.

Early teases suggest that the production model will be capable of a sub-two-second 0-100km/h sprint, making it hypercar quick, and produce more than 1000kW from a triple-motor powertrain.

Other rumours suggest the Denza will debut BYD’s next-gen 1000-volt electrical system for some of the fastest charging of any EV.

Then there’s the price. While the most basic 911 Carrera Coupe costs $280,500 plus on-roads, the production Denza 7 is expected to be priced from just 300,000 yuan ($A65,000).

No timeline for when the Denza Z will enter showrooms, but BYD has already confirmed the Denza brand will launch locally later this year – though there’s been no mention on if the Z is under consideration.

Denza began life back in 2010 as a BYD-Mercedes joint venture before Benz’s share was bought out by its Chinese business partner which snapped up the last 10 per cent share in 2024.

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