He’s talking about a different subject he was asked about before: artificial intelligence in video games. It’s just a quick reference to another conversation.
This means a nicer, more expensive car brand. It usually has more features and a more upscale feel than the cheaper models people associate with the parent company.
This is a car that can run on electricity for a while, but also has a gas engine. You can plug it in to charge the battery instead of only filling it with gas.
This is a specific electric car made by BYD, a Chinese car company. They’re talking about the version that runs only on electricity and comparing its performance to other fast EVs.
This is the big battery that powers the electric car. A larger battery usually means more range, but it also adds weight and can take longer to charge.
This means the car can power all four wheels instead of just two. That helps the car hold on better when the road is slippery or when it needs more grip.
This is a trick where the car can move sideways at an angle instead of only straight forward or backward. It helps in tight spaces and looks unusual when you see it happen.
This is a special driving mode that helps the car turn or swing around more easily in tight spots. It can make parking and low-speed maneuvering much simpler.
This is when you park along the street, with the car lined up with the curb. It can be tricky because you have to fit into a tight space between other cars.
The hosts are talking about why some cars work well in Europe even if they’re big. Tight streets and parking make it important for a car to turn easily.
This means the car can go from almost empty to nearly full very quickly. Charging usually gets slower near the top, so companies often stop the claim before 100%.
This is a small storage box between the front seats that can keep things hot or cold. It’s handy if you want to leave food or drinks in the car for a short time.
The European Union is a group of European countries that share some laws and trade rules. Here, it’s the organization deciding how imported cars get taxed.
This is the process of getting a car officially approved for sale in a country or region. The car has to pass local rules before people can buy and drive it there.
This means the car is being adapted for buyers in Europe. Different countries can want different features and have different rules, so the car may need changes before it can be sold there.
This is when owners ask the company to fix something under the car’s warranty. If a company expects a lot of these, it may charge more for the car to cover those costs.
When you buy a car, there are extra government fees to put it in your name and make it legal to drive. Those fees are separate from the car’s sticker price.
They’re joking about converting prices between currencies. A car can seem cheaper or more expensive depending on whether the price is in dollars or euros.
This part is about the fancy, expensive side of the European car market. They’re asking whether a Chinese EV brand can charge luxury-car money and be taken seriously.
It means setting the price to match the kind of car you want people to think it is. If you want to be seen as luxury, you usually have to charge like luxury.
They’re lining up a bunch of expensive electric cars to show what kind of market price they’re talking about. It’s basically a way to say, “Here’s the class of vehicles this one is competing with.”
It means comparing things fairly, like comparing similar cars instead of totally different ones. They’re saying these vehicles are in the same general category.
Concept
EU
EU means Europe as a big market area with shared rules. They’re talking about how much the car costs in Europe.
Ford is a big car company from the U.S. The speaker is saying that if someone can afford one Ford, they might be able to afford a more expensive Ford too.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles,
renewable energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more.
My name is Bode, and I am your host, and I almost forgot my own intro.
It actually happens more than you think.
Anyway, yeah.
Alright, so got my taxes done today.
Very busy.
When I say got my taxes done today, I've been working on it for weeks,
and I finally finished today.
Now, because they're particularly difficult to do,
they're not your standard taxes, but they're not like the hardest thing in the world to do.
It's more so I have this thing where I really feel like I have to complete something in its entirety.
I just have a hard time leaving things, and I'm working on it.
I'm trying to get better at it.
But that kind of falls into this show, right?
So I might have half a show planned, and that half a show might be 18 minutes,
but because it's not 20 minutes, or half a show written, I should say,
because it's not 20 minutes, I will not record that show until I have the other three or four minutes of material.
And sometimes, the way that my brain works is all of this kind of causes like procrastination.
And listen, it's procrastination because I got lots of stuff going on.
I have my part-time job, I've got my kids, I've got my full-time job,
which currently are my full-time jobs taking more than the hours that I actually spend at work.
Not a lot, and it's getting better, but over the last couple of weeks, it's been more.
And I just don't have a lot of time in general.
And this is not to say that poor Bodhi, because I live a pretty good life,
and in no way am I complaining.
I'm trying to explain what I'm trying to get better at because I struggle.
I am a person that thinks that I can get X amount of things done.
Like today, before I go to bed, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna get these seven things done.
And I'll probably only get three of them done, and two of them are probably realistic.
And the third one, we'll see where it goes.
But I am overly optimistic, and that in turn leads me to, you know,
feeling like I'm not accomplishing what I wanted to set out to accomplish.
I don't know if any of this is going anywhere, or is hitting or resonating with anybody.
But my whole point is, is that I wrote an episode yesterday,
but I only wrote one, or I had an episode yesterday, but I only had one story.
And I was like, why can't just do one story?
But in reality, because I did taxes all day yesterday, I did taxes all day today,
and I've been doing it throughout the week, or the previous week,
and even earlier than that, I was like, I just can't put out one episode.
But if I didn't, or one story episode, but if I didn't do that,
I literally would have no episode for today.
So that's all to say, I'm trying to get better at this is what I can get done today,
and it's just going to have to be good enough.
So if this episode lasts 20 minutes, awesome.
If this episode lasts, I don't know, 15 minutes, also awesome.
I just need to be okay with that.
And for whatever reason in my brain, I can't, if it's 19 minutes and 59 seconds,
I can't get over that.
It drives me out of my head.
And it's seriously something I'm working on.
I don't know why.
I don't know if anybody else has this issue either.
And again, I owe Alice and Sheridan a bunch of content
that I'll be happy to get to her, but I've been busy doing other things.
And because I've been busy doing other things,
I feel guilty about the things that I'm not getting done.
I feel guilty about not getting Alice in the content that I promised.
And I feel guilty about all the other things and people that I think I'm letting down.
So that is all to say, because I've gone for five minutes
basically complaining and dumping.
This episode probably will be 20 minutes, but we only have one story.
And this is a story that I actually did on the Daily Tech News show yesterday.
So if you came over here from DTNS, thank you very much.
I appreciate you subscribing and following the show.
Or if you just happen to listen to that episode, don't worry,
because I'm going to give more detail.
Whenever Tom asks me to be on that show, first of all,
I'm extraordinarily honored that I get asked.
It makes my day.
But second of all, I want to come as prepared as humanly possible.
So I will hands down over prepare for everything.
Just in case he asked me something, I can go to it.
And just kind of a story here.
Sorry, this episode is going to be all over the place.
The first, I think it was the first time I was on DTNS.
I'm waiting for my spot to come on.
This was the earlier version of DTNS.
I'm waiting for the spot for me to come in and talk about my segment.
And they were talking about some story and Tom just throws to me.
And he's like, what do you think about XYZ?
I think it was AI in video games and like,
basically AI building an infinite world, which, you know,
I have thoughts about, I won't share them here
because I don't want to waste your time.
But I definitely have thoughts about that kind of thing.
But I was engaged.
I was listening as if I was listening to the podcast
and not on the podcast.
So when he threw to me, I just bricked it.
I was terrified.
I didn't know what to say.
And after that, I was like, you know what?
Never again.
That was an awful moment for me.
Not because, because he was very nice
and he was trying to include me,
not because of any other reason other than I was not prepared.
So I overprepared for those.
And that's why I have so much content on the Denza Z9 GT car.
And we're gonna go into a little bit more detail
like I said about that today.
So here's the thing.
And I apologize if you can hear my family
on the other side of the door.
But here's the thing.
Before we do that, we have a new Patreon supporter
and that is David.
David, thank you so much for becoming a Patreon supporter.
I do know that I owe you an email
and more than just a thank you email
because we had some correspondence before.
So I promise you I will send you that email
tonight or tomorrow.
It's currently 7.15 and I am,
as you can tell by my rambling, exhausted.
So it might be tomorrow.
We'll kind of see how much longer this takes me.
But anyway, so having said all that,
thank you David for agreeing to,
not agreeing, thank you David
for becoming a Patreon supporter.
And David did that by going to supportkelloa.com.
There you can sign up for Supercast
or Patreon, whichever one you like.
But it was very nice of David to do that.
So David, thank you very much, especially since
before he did that I asked David a favor.
So it was even nicer of him
to become a Patreon
after I literally asked him to do me a favor.
So David, thank you very kind of you.
And your generosity doesn't go unnoticed for sure.
All right.
So what are we talking about today?
I kind of teased it a little bit.
We are talking about Denza.
Now if you're not familiar with Denza,
it is a BYD brand.
And BYD is known for having really affordable cars.
But this is different.
So the Denza is a BYG group company.
So it's not BYD, the really affordable car brand.
It is BYD, the premium car brand.
Or excuse me, it's Denza, the premium car brand
that happens to be owned by BYD Group.
And here's the problem.
And I'm even doing this is
because it's owned by BYD Group,
you automatically have an assumption
that it's going to be super affordable.
You automatically have an assumption
that it's going to be kind of like a bare bones car.
But you're going to get a lot of value for that car.
Is it going to have every bell and whistle?
No, but will it have more bells and whistles
than another car that costs $13,000?
Yes, it absolutely will.
So you're going to get more value for that car.
Just a little bit of history.
Initially Denza was founded in 2010
and it was a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and BYD.
Now, I don't know what the initial plan was
for this joint venture.
But in China, if you want to sell your cars in,
if you want to sell your cars in China
and you're not Tesla,
then you need to partner up with a Chinese firm
in a joint venture.
So I don't know what the initial motivations
for this were,
but Mercedes and BYD Group partnered
to build this premium brand Denza.
Now over time,
Denza, or excuse me, Mercedes
started withdrawing from the venture
for whatever reason,
and I'm not sure what the reason is.
And they sold their last remaining stake in 2024.
So now it's a wholly owned BYD company.
Denza makes the D9,
which is a minivan,
but they're also making this premium,
I think it's a sedan,
it looks like a sedan to me.
It could be a crossover,
it could be kind of a wagon.
I'm not a fan of the way this car looks at all,
but some people might be.
So I don't want to yuck your yum.
It comes in a plug-in hybrid version,
or a plug-in EV version,
and a battery electric version.
So plug-in hybrid EV,
yeah, and battery electric version.
So we're going to talk more
about the battery electric version today.
So the specs for the Z9 GT,
which is the specific car
that we're going to talk about today.
Depending on the trim you pick,
these kind of vary,
but I picked one trim just to keep it simple.
An impressive trim to keep it simple.
But you're going to get 1,140 horsepower.
It'll go 0 to 60 in 2.7 seconds,
0 to 62 miles per hour in 2.7 seconds,
and that's 0 to 100 kilometers.
And that's impressive for a lot of reasons,
just because, you know,
that's Model S Plaid territory right there.
But also, like the Lucid Air,
which also has a very fast acceleration,
it's a little bit over two tons.
So it's a big, heavy car,
and it's got a lot of battery.
The Z9 GT is nearly three tons.
So, you know, not significantly heavier than the air,
but pretty heavy,
and it can still get up and go
when it comes to acceleration.
You're going to get a 122 kilowatt hour battery,
and that's, you know, okay.
You get 372 miles of range,
which is not the best range
that you are going to get for 122 kilowatt hours.
We can have some improved efficiencies,
but still, not too shabby.
That's 600 kilometers.
One of the cool things about this car,
and this one cool thing does several things cool,
but one of the cool things about this car
is it's got three motors.
So it's got one motor up front,
and it's got two motors in the back.
And most of the time,
this car drives around as a real rear-wheel drive.
Rear-wheel drive,
and as we all learned just recently from Brian and Kerry,
the rear-wheel drive vehicles and Joe have better performance.
So when it's necessary to be rear-wheel drive
and give you that extra performance,
you get that.
But then also,
when it needs that extra traction,
the all-wheel drive will kick in,
so that front motor will kick in,
and you'll have that option.
This isn't the only car that does that,
but that's still pretty cool.
The other thing is, is this car will drive diagonally.
It will do what's called a crab walk,
because the rear tires will turn a little bit.
So that's super cool.
But the thing that I found to be the coolest feature,
actually it's the second coolest feature,
but the thing that I found to be
the second coolest feature, I guess,
is it has a pivot mode.
So one of the things that people mention for this
is the pivot mode is going to help with parallel parking,
for instance.
So think about you are pulling into a spot.
Maybe it's tighter than you normally feel comfortable,
or maybe you're just somebody who doesn't feel comfortable
parallel parking.
You can nose the car in to the spot, right?
And then because the car has that crab walk ability
and it's got two separate motors,
what it will do is one tire will go forward
and one tire will go backward,
and it will actually pivot you, the back part of the car,
into the parking space.
So if you, again, if you're not great at parallel parking,
or if you parallel parked just fine,
or you parked on the street just fine,
it comes up and they parked too close to you,
and it's really difficult to get out.
This is a super cool feature to be able to just
use that pivot mode to swing that back end out
so you can get out of the parallel parking spot.
This is all done on the screen,
on the infotainment screen.
So when you pull it up, it'll show the car,
and then you can choose how far you want it to pivot.
You could technically, I guess, pivot in 360 degrees,
but you can say how far you want it to pivot,
and it will do that.
BYD, or DINZA, says that this is not going to chew up the tires.
You know, it's got minimal wear on the tires.
We'll kind of see where that goes.
It does seem like it would have a little bit,
a little bit more wear on the tires
when you do that kind of thing, but who knows?
This car is also three tons, or nearly three tons,
so it's also going to have wear on the tires
just because it's that heavy.
The other thing with this car
is it's got a really good turning radius,
partly because of the way that the wheels work in the back.
And this car is going to be sold.
It's being sold in China now.
It's going to be sold in Australia.
Although Australia pricing, there is reports
on what the Australia pricing is going to be,
but nothing's been officially announced by DINZA.
So we'll ignore Australia for now.
Sorry, Australia.
We'll wait and see what the pricing is for you folks.
The estimates are very low.
The estimates of this car is going to cost,
you know, like $50,000, $60,000 U.S.
or, you know, what is that, $45,000,
45,000 euros, whatever,
which is a really good price in most cases.
In every case, really,
especially when I talk about the pricing for Europe.
But if you're driving a car in China,
especially in congested cities,
or you're driving the car in European towns
and cities, you know, parking,
some of the streets can be narrow.
This car has an incredible turning radius.
So this is a bigger car
that would actually do really well in Europe,
in these places where you kind of have to,
where maybe smaller cars do better.
This car is a good option.
That's what I'm saying.
Just because of its turning radius.
This car, it's super, another cool thing.
You know, we talked about this a while ago.
BYD has these flash chargers,
which are like one and a half megawatt chargers.
So it can fill the battery in the BYD.
The BYD is using, or excuse me, pardon me, the Denza.
The Denza is using BYD's Blade II batteries.
And they're LFP.
And there's a bunch of magic that goes on.
But the lithium-ion phosphate batteries are more robust.
They're not as energy dense as NMC batteries,
but they're more robust.
And they're able to shove so much power
through cooling and battery management
and the battery chemistry.
They're able to shove so much energy into this battery.
It's nuts.
You can charge this battery from 10 to 97% in about nine minutes
with the BYD flash charger.
And as far as I know from what I read,
there's only like six BYD flash chargers
that are currently planned for Europe.
So there's not a lot, but there's quite a few in China.
I don't know if there are any in Australia.
I would say quite a few.
I mean, it's still a handful compared,
but more than six.
And I don't know how many they're planning for Australia
or if there is any in Australia at the moment.
But why 97%?
Why 10 to 97% and not 10 to 100%?
Well, there might be another reason for this,
but Denza is saying that they only charged a 97%
in this test because it leaves 3% for regenerative braking.
Because once you charge an EV to 100%,
you have no more regenerative braking.
So whether that's true or not true, I don't know.
Maybe that last 3% takes an extra long time.
I'm sure people will test it.
But yes, for now, 10% to 90% in under nine minutes,
in around nine minutes, we should say.
Pretty impressive, especially when you consider
like a 1.5 megawatt charger.
You know, there are some chargers that are 600 kilowatts,
not megawatts, kilowatts.
And you know, the Tesla chargers are typically
around like 325 kilowatts.
So 1.5 megawatts is insane.
I would like to see where this car is in a couple of years
to see what kind of battery degradation we're seeing.
But for right now, it's very impressive.
Now, can I tell you please about the coolest feature
of this car, which is in the console
between the driver and the passenger in the front seat,
there's a little space that will keep things cool or hot.
So there's like a little refrigerator or warmer.
You can choose which one you want it to be in that space,
which I think honestly is amazing,
especially for somebody who lives in Arizona,
being able to keep things cool,
especially if it's something small,
where you're running in, running a second errand.
Like if we go grocery shopping,
you can't put a lot in here.
So it's not like I can put every cold product.
But if we go grocery shopping and I grab some,
let's say meat or whatever,
I can stick it in this little container in between the seats
and run in and check my mail, for instance,
and not worry about tainting or ruining the meat
that I just bought.
It just gives you some more options.
But obviously the other thing is you can keep food warm in there
or you can put your drinks in there and keep it cool.
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So that's the car.
Now, what about the controversy?
Because there's controversy around this car.
So I mentioned that the car sells for...
I'm going to use euros just to kind of keep things simple
because we're not talking about US here.
The car sells for 34,000 to 46,000 euros in China.
The equivalent of 34,000 to 46,000.
In Europe, it's expected to sell for 115,000 euros.
Now, just to kind of give you a reference
for us in the United States, it's about $134,000.
So 115,000 euros in Europe,
$46,000, or even we'll start with the starting price,
$34,000 in China.
So why is there such a big difference?
Well, if you remember back a couple years ago,
like in 2024, we talked about how
the European Union put tariffs or duties
on Chinese-built EVs.
I was reading an autoblog article
and they are reporting that there's a standard
10% tariff for products coming out of China.
I don't know if that's all products,
but we'll just say standard 10% tariff.
And then BYD pays 17% tariffs on their vehicles.
So we can assume that since this is a BYD vehicle,
it's pretty fair that they're going to pay
around 27% tariff on that vehicle
when they're shipping it from China into Europe
because they're going to be building these cars in China.
One thing that I found interesting that I didn't know
is that in February of 2026,
the European Union passed a law
that will allow automakers to negotiate
tariff prices or tariff percentages
on specific models of cars.
So if for some reason, let's say Volkswagen
wants to bring a Chinese-built car into the EU,
they can do that and then they can also
talk to the EU and say,
hey, can we get a deal on this?
Because X amount of the vehicle is actually,
while it's assembled in China,
we're getting so much parts from the European Union areas.
Can we get a break on this?
And maybe they can, maybe they can.
But anyway, but still with those tariffs,
we wouldn't see the price go from 34,000 euros
to 115,000 euros.
We're just not, that's just a huge jump.
So that doesn't really account for why the price is so much.
So the next thing to look at is,
well, they have to build it in China
and then they have to ship it.
And then there's homologation,
which is an approval,
basically it's the testing and approval process
for these governments to say,
this car is safe to drive on our roads
and meets all of our standards.
There's tweaks for the European market
not only for them to meet those safety standards
that Europe has,
but also maybe they're tweaking some things
to make it more appealing to Europeans.
And we're gonna have different sensibilities
when we're talking about folks who live in China
and folks who live in the EU.
So there's that, that adds a little bit of money.
There's potential for dealers, warranty claims.
They're paying Daniel Craig
who was the last James Bond.
They're paying him to be the spokesman of the brand
because it's supposed to be,
and I'm using your quotes here, premium.
So there's that too.
Daniel's salary gets kind of put into this whole thing.
The other thing is that I think it was unnoticed
and I was guilty of this for sure early on
or even when I say early on, we'll say seven years in.
I was guilty of this as well,
but in Europe, the value added tax, right?
So everything, when you go to Europe for the most part
and you buy a car, if it says that it costs $40,000
or 40,000 euros for the car,
the car's gonna be pretty close out the door for 40,000 euros.
Like there might be some things here and there
that you have to pay,
but it's not like the United States when the car,
they say the car is gonna cost $40,000
and then you have to pay for the undercoding
and the this and the that and the waxing the glass
and all the nonsense that they add on to the car
that you don't get to choose if you get that or not.
You don't get to decline it.
So the car costs $40,000
and then these other products cost another $2,500
because they wanna check up the price.
And then you gotta pay tax on top of that
and then there's registration fees
and all this other stuff.
So with that, you know, a $40,000 car might cost $48,000
because of all this other stuff
that gets put into the purchase price
that some of which you don't want,
all of which you probably don't wanna pay
but you know, some of which is legit.
Like you legitimately have to pay taxes.
You legitimately don't have to pay somebody
to wax your glass or whatever nonsense
they're trying to sell you at the dealership.
So with that, if you take the tariffs,
the home allegation, the shipping, the warranty stuff,
the European market tweaks,
the boatload of money they're paying Daniel Craig,
the value-added tax, does that justify
$115,000 or euros?
Excuse me, I am terrible at my localization of money.
Does that justify 115,000 euros
versus 34,000 euros
is what it starts at in China?
And the answer is no.
It still doesn't get to that level.
So the question remains,
why in the world is Denza charging 115,000 euros
in the EU and 34,000 euros in China?
I believe that BYD sees an opportunity
to compete in the European car market.
Actually, I should say premium European car market
because they're not competing on the low end.
They think they can compete with Porsche, Audi,
Mercedes, BMW.
Even Lucid is in the EU just a little bit.
So they think that their car, the Z9 GT
is at the same level as these other automakers.
And if you're going to put yourself
against these folks, you need to price accordingly.
So kind of as a point of reference,
and I don't know if you can hear this,
but my daughter is playing violin,
my son is playing flute,
and it is literally right outside my door.
This is not a normal thing that happens at my house,
it's 7.30 at night.
It's fine, but I just apologize if it's bugging you.
It doesn't bug me at all,
but I know violin and it can be a little grating.
Anyway, where was I?
Yeah, so if they're going to compete with these companies,
then they have to compete in that same realm
when it comes to price.
Now, I'm just going to kind of read off a couple cars
that are in that price range.
And then I have a reason for doing this,
but we'll start off with the Porsche Panamera.
This car starts at 99,000 euros,
and that's for the hybrid.
Higher if you want the full battery electric vehicle.
The Porsche Taycan starts at 103,000 euros right around there.
The Audi RS e-tron,
a bit more affordable at 90,000 euros,
where it starts the Mercedes EQS,
which is probably more comparable to this car,
at 94,000 euros.
The Lucid Air Grand Touring is sitting at 120,000 euros.
So these are not inexpensive vehicles.
So 115,000 euros, it's right in that wheelhouse, right?
If we're comparing apples to apples,
they're all probably pretty close to this.
Not to say that they are, like, dead on.
They're just all pretty close to that $115,000 price.
So my guess is on this,
that Denza feels that they,
since they're competing in this space
and they're offering all of this value,
that they can charge more money.
And my guess is also that most buyers
who purchased this car for 115,000 euros
aren't going to look back at what they're selling this car for
in China, Australia, or wherever else they sell it.
They're just going to buy the car in the market that they live in.
And maybe they'll find out at some point in time
that it costs less money in China,
but we all kind of assume that things cost less money in China.
So I don't even know if that's a big deal.
Some people are kind of spun up about this.
I don't think this is a big deal.
This is, BYD sees an opportunity at this premium brand,
at this premium range in the EU,
and they're going to price their car accordingly.
Why wouldn't you?
You want to make as much money as you can as a company
while not gouging people?
And maybe they are gouging people,
but I don't think they are.
I think they see themselves as a premium car brand
and they're going to price it at a premium level.
Here's the thing, though.
If it doesn't sell at $115,000,
they can always lower the price.
And people are like,
oh, well, they're lowering the price, so I'll buy one, right?
How do you think it goes if they start at $75,000, let's say?
And they're like, oh, this isn't enough.
We're going to raise the price up.
If they're going to get accused of price gouging,
they're going to get accused of this same exact thing.
So while they're trying to figure out what the price is,
and they probably have good data to show
that people will pay $115,000 for the Z9,
but while they're trying to work on this,
the market will tell them,
is this a good price or do we need to lower the price?
And they will do that,
but it's much harder to go the other way.
And if I'm being honest,
my general feeling, this car,
based on the features that it has,
and it has some cool features,
they're also kind of niche,
like the pivot thing is really neat,
but is it worth another $15,000 to be able to pivot?
No, I don't think so.
So my general feeling is that this car should start
around $85,000 or 85,000 euros
and go up to no more than 100,000 euros.
That's where this car is probably going to find success.
If I'm just basing this off of 10 years of doing this show
or maybe 10 years of doing the show,
that's where I think they might find some success.
But here's the thing,
they are also competing with established European brands.
Even Lucid is more established than Denza,
so you look at Porsche and BMW and Audi
and even the higher end Volkswagen's
or the Italian cars,
or even the cars that are coming out of the UK,
these are established brands in Europe
and they have a lot of people who are loyal to those brands.
So it doesn't make sense for Denza to come in
and charge $115,000 or euros.
Maybe some of these other cars,
if you kind of compare them apples to apples,
are more than 115,000 euros, right?
So they are coming in at the lower end of that premium market
when you compare prices, range,
abilities, features, that kind of thing.
But still, if you had 115 euros to spend on a car,
a brand that you've never heard of,
it's a Chinese brand,
and then you go over across the street
and there's a dealership, let's say BMW dealership,
and you can spend 130,000 euros on a brand
that you know is established,
you've probably owned one or known people that have owned them.
You know what their reputation is
and you can afford to do that.
If you can afford a Ford 115,
you could probably afford a Ford 130.
So, you know,
that's a little bit of an uphill battle in that regard.
Oh, man.
I thought that would take about seven minutes
and here we are, 33 minutes into this.
So, I'm gonna, I'm glad I didn't write more.
This show would have been unwieldy.
If you have thoughts on the Denza Z9 GT,
please email me.
It's Bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.
For everybody who has sent me an email
in the last couple of days and I haven't responded,
I'm working on it and I'll get to you.
I apologize for the delay.
And then a big thanks again to David
for being so generous and, you know,
signing up for Patreon.
Really appreciate that.
All right, everybody.
I am going to go take a shower
because it is super hot in this room.
I hope y'all have a wonderful day
and, you know, if everything goes right,
I'm gonna talk to you on Friday.
We'll see.
I actually don't have anything planned on Friday
except for a meeting with my oldest
who's coming to my house
and we're just gonna hang out and do fun things.
So, that's nice.
Hanging out with kids is always fun.
And I'm waiting on a couch.
Those are my only two things that I got going that day
other than recording this podcast.
So, I don't have a good reason
as to why this podcast wouldn't go out on time on Friday.
But I'm sure I'll come up with one.
All right, everybody.
Thank you so much for listening.
I will talk to you soon.
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About this episode
Bode digs into BYD’s Denza Z9 GT, a premium EV that challenges assumptions about Chinese brands being purely budget-focused. After a personal intro about procrastination and overpreparing for guest spots, he explains Denza’s Mercedes-BYD origins and how it’s now fully owned by BYD. The spotlight is on the Z9 GT’s wild specs: 1,140 horsepower, 2.7-second 0-60 time, a 122 kWh battery, three motors, rear-biased driving, and crab-walk maneuvering. The big question is whether BYD is using Europe’s luxury market to justify a higher markup.
This episode of Kilowatt dives into the staggering engineering and questionable economics of BYD’s luxury powerhouse, the Denza Z9 GT. Originally born from a partnership with Mercedes-Benz, the Denza brand is now striking out on its own with a 1,140-horsepower "shooting brake" that boasts some of the most advanced chassis tech on the planet. We explore its incredible ability to "crab walk" and pivot, its massive 1.5-megawatt charging capability, and why it might just be the fastest-charging EV in the world. However, the real conversation starts with the sticker shock: why does a car that costs roughly $40,000 in China command a staggering $134,000 price tag in Europe? We break down the impact of EU tariffs, shipping costs, and BYD’s aggressive strategy to pivot from a budget brand to a premium Porsche competitor. Plus, a special thank you to David for joining our Patreon family.
