Not that it matters to BYD since they have announced no export plans, but this is a non-starter in the US market. "Up to" 300km... in a US EPA test that is probably much closer to 225-240km. In US terms, this is a 4600lb, 150mi range car that sells for over $60k (note that I am simply taking the China sell price in $US and adding the 3% import tariff). Certainly it is sobering to see that China labor and cheaper materials still does not bring us the expected mid-range game changing BEV (150-200mi, $35k).

With the exceptional range of hybrid products across the range of size and power needs of China customers, it just seems unlikely that the putative 40,000 Denza/year production capacity will be stressed.

Too bad it does not come with a little never-tracting / pure Electricity Generator ICE "Range Extender", that would make it the perfect sole car replacement of the future for the next 10 years, vs all other pure-EVs limited to luxury second cars due to lack of Range Extender (Even the one on i3 is too limited to make it a full purpose car replacement car you can go on summer vacations with, so only a local commutes 2nd car w/o the range anxiety you have on pure EV competitors).
For me with a range extender they could reduce the battery to optimal 30KWH to 40KWH instead of 57KWH, right sizing it for better than average local commutes only, with 1 charge per 24h to few charges per week to cover local commutes on 100% electric mode. Of course the larger the better on the battery as long as it can fit a decent budget, which seams the case here. Then the form factor may be an issue here (I'd prefer a compact sporty SUV in BMW X4, or Audi TT OffRoad fashion).

@Herman, Henrik and Patrick,

This Denza is not just another BEV. This BEV is a world-class vehicle designed and engineered by the World's Premier Automotive giant company Daimler-Benz, to the strictest standards of safety and reliability. I would not be surprised if this vehicle will be marketed elsewhere in the world under the MB badge.

In China, this vehicle is targeted to the nouveaux riches, hence the steep price reflects status symbol and is another selling point, beside being designed and engineered by DB. Other status symbols and advantages has to do with: "DENZA offers its customers exemption from the standard license plate lottery in Beijing, or free license plates in Shanghai and Shenzhen; and central and local subsidies totaling up to almost RMB 120,000 (~US$19,000) that can be deducted from the vehicle price right away."

So, the car has a listed price of $59,000 USD, which is enough for status symbol purpose, yet, the "nouveaux riches" only has to fork out $40,000 to pay for it, thanks to BEV subsidies of $19,000, (darn close to Herman's $35k price point) PLUS other advantages as above, PLUS significant savings from petroleum cost as well as maintenance cost... It's kinda like you get to eat the cake and still have it!

But, I'd still say cut down the battery pack to 10 kWh (weighing only 100 kg) while adding a 95 kW 1-liter 3-cylinder turbocharged engine (Honda or Ford Ecoboost) and a two-speed transmission (weighing 100kg) to save about 300 kg in battery weight with another 200 kg wt saving from lighter structural and suspension parts, or a saving of about 1,100 lbs, while UPPING THE POWER TO 87 + 95 =182 kW, or 244 hp! If you would consider BOTH the 1100 lbs wt saving AND the gain of 95 kW (127hp), just imagine what that would do for performance including acceleration, braking, and handling?

Of course, I've just re-invented a PHEV mix between the BYD's Qin and F3DM. Worthy of note is that the Qin is a full-size sedan having very fast acceleration of 0-60mph of 5.9 seconds while having a listed price of $31,000 USD BEFORE any price subsidy for ZEV. No wonder the Qin is selling like hotcakes in China!

Roger, you should talk to a few Nouveaux Riches in the US. They will never buy your 10KWH option, unless no other choice. By nature they want "everything", the best, including the comfort and no (range)anxiety, and they don't want to become battery charging slaves either, including in China.
Even if they often fly when they need to go far away, for their work and some vacation trips(including me), they want to have "the freedom" to drive far away too, to present their beautiful new big statutory car to their far away familly left behind in its province, once or twice a year (Summer vacations and Christmas, or New Year for the Chineze)... The greens won't change humanity, they need to adapt the "greenetude" to it. LoL.
I don't see BEV / Pure EVs winning beyond their niche market yet far to be saturated. People will prefer a range extended PHEV for ages because their freedom has no price. With the largest possible Battery, so they don't have to bother with refeeling it all the time. They will want a better EV car than their today ICE car, nothing less, no compromise. Whoever plans for that will win, and others planning for constrains will loose. Bet it.

Roger , you have to stop with this rooting for range extenders.

The future is going to be BEVs with the help of Superchargers on major highways. And if that isn`t enough there will no doubt be a healthy business for mobile chargers utilising former tow trucks that have been upgraded for capability to make a 20 minute charge.

Unless there is a 50km stretch of major highway in your daily commute it is possible that you will rarely need to visit a Supercharger anyway.

Most charging locales will be at home rather than that special place we are forced to go out of our way to refuel a gasoline car.
This preoccupation with ice-age machinery will continue to bring with it those frequently necessary visits plus those for regular fluid changes for engine cooling and lubrication. From that angle electrification seems to be somewhat attractive.

@T2
The future may going to be BEV, but in the present, we are needing a large number of PEV's real fast, and we don't have enough batteries to go around.

Tesla has to restrict production due to battery shortage...Now, Tesla is going to spend a lot of money to open Giga Battery Factory...to build cars with 85 kWh of battery each! If Tesla will settle for a 10-kWh PHEV, then Tesla's investment in the battery factory will be 1/8th as much and will get much faster return for the money, and sales will accelerate much faster due to the much more affordable prices of a PHEV-10kWh to pay off for the battery factory investment.

Tesla do not have to build their own 1-liter turbocharged engine, since they can do a JV with another company or have someone build it for cheap, due to the wide availability of engines in that size range, and can crank out millions of copies yearly w/out problem, unlike the battery availability issue.

The rapid build up of BEV's will escalate the price of Lithium, and that will severely dampen economic activities, not just for PEV makers, but for all electronic sectors, since nearly all portable electronics and appliances are now using Lithium batteries.

The reason that most BEV's are geared for top speed of 90mph (too slow!) is that in the absence of variable-ratio transmission, the motor must rev fast to provide adequate torque, and top end rpm is limited by keeping the rotor from blowing up due to centrifugal force. Adding even a two-speed transmission will be a big performance enhancement for BEV's.

Furthermore, with current ICE having 100,000-mi engine tuneup intervals including spark plugs and coolant fluid change, and 150,000-mi transmission fluid change, a PHEV having the engine running only 1/4th of the time will never need engine tune-up nor any transmission service.

Using the e-motor for most of the time, the two-speed transmission will rarely need any gear shift at all, except when driving at its top speeds over 100 mph or when climbing steep hills with the battery completely exhausted (very unlikely scenerios) or when needing neck-snapping acceleration like doing traffic-light drag racing in the streets ("Fast and Furious").

Thus, a PHEV will have similar maintenance cost and schedule to a BEV..., except for an oil change every two or three years or so with synthetic oil that can be done at home.

If Tesla will settle for a 10-kWh PHEV, then Tesla's investment in the battery factory will be 1/8th as much.

Clearly Roger you don't understand where Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, is going with this. He is not just supplying a high end premium electric sports sedan. His mission is to use this disruptive technology to displace ICE vehicles including hybrids everywhere.

Much as we like the Prius, that and similar hybrid cars today are merely a bridge. If Musk were just supplying a different sort of car into the market, that would be one thing, but he realises that the infrastructure to support long distance travel with electric vehicles requires providing both the 85Kwhr battery packs inside the cars as well as providing a network of Supercharger installations externally. In that regard 100 Superchargers are already up and running across the United States. Last week he visited Shanghai where they have three Superchargers installed already.While there he was gifted with 3000 vehicle plates worth $16,000 each, since new vehicles can only be sold and registered there after an existing vehicle has been removed. Apparently it is not just North America that seeks freedom from harmful emissions. This maybe didn't make the news because the media was preoccupied with the Ukraine crisis.

For those who may not be aware these Superchargers are designed to bring a discharged 85Kwhr battery pack safely up to around 80% State-of-Charge in about twenty minutes allowing the driver to put on a further 200 miles until the next refill. People who need to make longer trips will probably opt for jet travel anyway.

Incidentally there are some observers who are convinced that even demolishing the established automotive industry model may turn out to be just a sideline business ! The real goal is certainly to bring battery storage down to $150/Kwhr with economy of scale and extreme vertical integration manufacturing. Attaining that price point will certainly threaten coal fired utilities since it will allow existing nuclear power stations to run very close to a 100% loading 24/7 by installing battery farms in close proximity to urban load centers. The location of these farms would utilise existing feeder capabilities which are equally under-utilised during the off peak periods.

I am going to overlook your enthusiasm for 100mph and stop light Grand Prix's since automatic two speed gearboxes will add considerable expense for very little gain. There are always going to be holdouts like you Roger who yearn for the status quo but may I remind you that gasoline has peaked at $1.3CAN/liter in some places in Canada right now. OTOH a Nissan Leaf owner on the radio today offered that his car can deliver 140Km on $2Can of electricity.

T2, I hope that your predictions are correct. BEVs will certainly win the war when various types of 5-5-5 batteries are mass produced. Will that come (partly) true by 2020 or so with Tesla's ultra large battery factory? Batteries evolution will not stop with the 5-5-5 units. Ultra quick charge 10-10-10 units are a possibility by 2035 or so.

The only exceptions may be long range heavy trucks, high way long range buses, wireless locomotives, large commercial airplanes, ships etc. where some sort of on-board power unit (FCs or ICEs or Nuke?) will be required for extended range.

@T2. Practical, affordable FCEVs and extended BEVs will hit the market place by 2020 or so.

Those two technologies will have to co-exist for a few decades to satisfy different environments and larger vehicles.

USA could install (over about 10 years) 100,000 quick charge e-station for about $25B (at $250K each) and another 1000,000 H2 stations for another $100B (at $1,000K each). That is a lot less than the cost of one of the latest Oil Wars.

To get it done, USA will need a new leader with enough will and untied hands. That will be more difficult to find.

T2 et al talking about BEV is correct insofar as BEV is the future, but the question is how to ramp up to BEV. As you can see, the key $125/kwhr desired by Musk and others is more than 5 years away, and it requires significant ramp up in order to achieve that.

If you read up on disruptive innovation, the way a disruptive technology becomes the entrenched technology is by exploiting a niche, then using the niche to achieve economies of scale then move into spaces previously occupied by entrenched players. Elon Musk's genius is that he found the space where electric cars can be directly competitive with ICE cars. The Tesla Model S, for all its faults, is symmetrically superior to Porsches and other conventional ICE cars in every aspect except range. Thus, it became a wildly successful E-vehicle that appeals to people other than political greens.

The BYD Qin ended up following Tesla, compare the BYD Qin to the Volt, the F3DM, the Leaf, and even the Prius. It is superior to all of these cars not because it's greener, more efficient, or cheaper, but because it has a 5.9 0-60 time on acceleration. That means it has mass market appeal; if you are a young man or a youth, and you're provided with a choice of cars to drive, the Qin, for its price point (presumably after subsidies) and economy, is superior to the alternatives.

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The logical extension of the Qin concept, then, is not to sell PHEVs as green cars, but as niche extenders. To develop technology regarding batteries and electric motors, and to scale it en masse, basically, uprate the performance of a Prius.

For all conventional cars, instead of simply converting them to hybrid or electric status, what you do instead is to add what I would call "Torque Assist" units, to massively enhance their acceleration by adding electric motors in each wheel alongside relatively small batteries, only used when the vehicle is accelerating.

Conventional ICE and diesel engines tend to be most efficient at relatively high RPMs, for diesel, at peak torque, and for ICE, at half peak torque, and while at the high RPM, on high gear or relatively high gear. The entire practice of pulse and coast / pulse and glide hypermiling is based on the fact that when you conventionally drive a vehicle, the engine only spends a fraction of its time in its sweet spot, since at everything excepting freeway speeds, the engine is usually below its optimum RPM.

With a hybrid electric engine, though, it could be possible to maintain the engine constantly at its sweet spot, using surplus energy generation to instead charge the battery, using combined ICE / electric to deliver outsize acceleration, as with the BYD Qin, and running on electric power only once the battery exceeds a specific charge.

The result is two things. First, the car obtains a much superior acceleration under normal function, making it the equal of much more expensive cars. Second, the car obtains much improved fuel economy, as the engine operates under peak efficiency for greater periods of time as when compared to a conventional vehicle. Third, the car significantly reduces its requirement for battery capacity; ie, a 5 kw battery, enough for 20 miles, might be enough, since the car is fundamentally using its ICE to power the vehicle. Fourth, the car can be said to be completely superior, except for its mildly increased cost, to conventional ICE vehicles.