Neither Toyota nor Rolls-Royce saw this coming: BYD’s 1,000-horsepower electric beast costs 260,000 euros.

22/10/2026 12:00

Updated to

22/10/2026 14:22

BYD aims to surpass Toyota as the world’s top automaker by 2031. This was stated by its president and repeated by Stella Li, the company’s executive vice president. It involves producing various types of cars, including an ultra-luxury model that competes with Rolls-Royce or Maybach.

Through its luxury brand Yangwang, their latest effort is a classic luxury sedan measuring 5.5 meters in length, but it will be electric and is expected to feature a multi-motor system producing over 1,000 horsepower. What’s most striking is the price cited by Asian media, which is exorbitant for any Chinese car: over 2,000,000 yuan, or equivalently, over 260,000 euros.

An electric beast with 1,000 CV power competing against Rolls-Royce and Toyota

There are no official details from BYD yet, but Chinese media report that this vehicle is currently known internally as Yangwang HU. With its classic design and length, it appears poised to become a rival—on a global scale, as it makes no sense for it to be sold only in China—to Rolls-Royce, Maybach… or Toyota.

Toyota? Yes, Toyota. The world’s top automaker has unveiled a new strategy: launching its Toyota Century brand globally — currently, these cars are only produced in Japan and manually — positioning it above Lexus — we tested its latest hybrid sedan — and on par with brands like Rolls-Royce, Maybach, or Bentley.

This international expansion costs 150,000 euros, well below the 260,000 euros BYD is expected to charge for its new electric flagship. One reason for this price difference lies in the powertrains: while the Toyota Century SUV features a hybrid system with 406 horsepower, the upcoming BYD / Yangwang HU is expected to have two or, more likely, three electric motors delivering over 1,000 horsepower.

And over 1,000 km of range

That is one of the (fairly reasonable) expectations from Chinese media for this BYD vehicle designed to compete with Rolls-Royce. Zheng Yu, deputy general manager of Yangwang, revealed the first spy photos of this model last September, and now Hu Xiaoqing, general manager of Yangwang’s sales division, has confirmed it will be unveiled in the coming days to international press in the United Arab Emirates.

The release of a photo of this BYD electric beast next to the manufacturer’s Flash Charging superfast charging station makes it clear that this sedan will feature BYD’s latest battery technology and is expected to have a range of over 1,000 km; after all, the brand’s most luxurious electric sedan to date, the Yangwang U7, offers 1,006 km of range on a single charge.

But there’s more—since Stella Li herself predicted that BYD would launch its first car with solid-state batteries in 2027, many international media outlets already assume that this electric beast and BYD’s flagship model could be the group’s first to adopt this technology.

In addition to this possibility, two other details have drawn attention to the upcoming BYD model priced at 260,000 euros. The first is that the photos show a LiDAR radar system mounted on the roof, suggesting this sedan will feature the brand’s most advanced autonomous driving system and even set new standards for it, which BYD calls God’s Eye.

The second notable feature is the presence of suicide doors on this electric vehicle that open in the opposite direction to the vehicle’s movement: a solution historically used by Rolls-Royce models, which would help position this BYD as an international rival to British cars.