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Yang Dongsheng, vice president of BYD, speaks at a launch event for the Denza N7 electric SUV on July 3, 2023 in Beijing.
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BEIJING – Chinese electric car giant BYD launches a new electric SUV, its most direct competitor to date Tesla’s Model Y.
BYD’s Denza brand said Monday night it has received more than 20,000 pre-orders for its N7 all-electric SUV and announced a price range of 301,800 yuan to 379,800 yuan ($41,680 to $52,452).
That rivals Tesla’s Model Y, the latest prices of which range from 263,900 yuan to 363,900 yuan, according to the company’s Chinese website.
According to the company, deliveries of the Denza N7 will begin in about two weeks.
“The Denza N7 is aimed squarely at the premium midsize crossover segment whose competition is the Tesla Model Y and the Nio ES6,” said Tu Le, founder of Beijing-based consulting firm Sino Auto Insights.
“Denza has really been under the radar for a few years now, but BYD is ready to show off its rejuvenated brand and the media blitz points to their confidence in the product and their desire to keep pressure on the incumbents,” he said.
During Monday’s hour-long launch event, BYD showed clips from local auto media during test drives.
A live stream of the event was viewed almost 2 million times on Weibo alone, China’s Twitter-like platform. That’s well above the 200,000 views a live stream for the launch of a Nio car attracted at the end of 2021.
On another page of Nio’s script, the launch of the Denza N7 in Beijing was followed by a live music performance.
Mercedes-Benz Group has a 10% stake in the Denza brand. Its earlier electric model, the D9 multi-purpose car, claims more than 10,000 sales per month since March. That car is available in Thailand and will be released in Hong Kong, Macau and Europe, a brand representative said Monday, without sharing any dates.
Technical features
From fast battery charging and in-house driver assistance technology to an array of in-car entertainment, the launch of the Denza N7 showcased features that were in stiff competition with what Nio, Tesla and other leading players in China’s electric car market have to offer .
“Denza N7 is the first luxury SUV to enter BBA’s market,” read a slide at the launch event in English, referring to the trio of German high-end brands Benz, BMW and Audi.
In a personal presentation on Monday, Denza’s general sales manager, Zhao Changjiang, noted the N7’s data privacy features, such as independent chip storage and the ability to disable cameras.
The Denza N7 also claimed to come with an augmented reality head-up display – which uses AR technology to digitally project information across the road ahead of the driver. Select models include BYD’s new shock absorption technology for a smoother ride, which domestic rivals have yet to sell.
Yang Dongsheng, vice president of BYD, praised driver-assist technology using Qualcomm chips and Nvidia Orin, which is often used in driver assistance systems. Orin is unaffected by the US ban on Nvidia’s sales of more advanced chips to China.
The car’s cockpit also connects to the Android smartphone’s operating system, Yang said.
Learn more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro
For youth accustomed to mobile phones, in-car connectivity systems are more appealing than driver-assist technology, Craig Zeng, CFO of online car information and shopping site Autohome, said in an interview last month. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his comments in Mandarin.
At the time, Zeng said he expected competition in China’s new energy vehicle market to shift to the price range of 400,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan and above. The 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan price range is the primary price range for cars in China, Zeng said.
New energy vehicles include hybrid cars.
Market for electric cars is growing
The launch of the Denza N7 SUV comes as major electric car startups saw a jump in deliveries in June following the recent weakness. Nio climbed back above 10,000 monthly deliveries, while Xpeng surpassed 8,000.
li carwhose cars come with a fuel tank to charge the battery and extend driving range, reported more than 32,000 vehicle deliveries for June.
For context, Tesla sold about 42,500 cars in China in May, according to the latest figures from the China Passenger Car Association.
BYD remains the giant in the market, saying it sold 128,196 battery-powered passenger cars in June, up 84% from a year ago.
BYD launches its most direct Tesla competitor to date
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