Having tempted British drivers out of their Fords and Toyotas, Chinese brands are now pushing to prise them from their Porsches

 

“The most annoying thing about owning a Chinese car has been people who don’t own a Chinese car insisting I must secretly hate it,” says Will from North Yorkshire, who switched from a Ford Fiesta to a BYD Dolphin last year. His new car, he says, “basically does everything well”.

  

Britain is one of the few rich countries to have resisted special tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles (EVs).

 

Chinese-owned brands accounted for 18% of new cars sold in Britain in April, according to data from MarkLines—nearly double their market share in the EU, which added charges of up to 35% in 2024.

 

Sales are nearly zero in America, which levies 100% import taxes.

 

Having tempted British drivers out of their Fords and Toyotas, Chinese brands are now pushing to prise them from their Porsches. BYD, a Shenzhen-based giant that started as a battery manufacturer, is leading the charge with two luxury brands. Denza, once a joint venture with Mercedes-Benz but wholly owned by BYD since 2024, will showcase its D9 and Z9 GT models to British buyers at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, an annual event for petrolheads that starts on July 9th. Yangwang, an even pricier marque that goes up against the likes of Ferrari, will follow, probably next year.

 

BYD is not alone. Geely, which started selling its £32,000 ($42,000) EX5 SUV only last year, plans to launch its premium Zeekr brand in Britain—joining Polestar and Xpeng in a Chinese crowd aiming to compete with the likes of BMW and Audi.

 

Promotional videos for the sporty Denza Z9 GT show Daniel Craig, an actor best known for having played James Bond, flinging the £100,000, 1,140hp electric vehicle around a damp forest trail. The choice lets Denza piggy-back on Bond’s association with Aston Martin, a legendary but struggling British brand that will not offer any EVs before 2030. “Daniel Craig is really smart; 007 is really smart,” says Bono Ge, head of BYD’s British division. “He’s always driving some fancy cars with high tech inside so I think it really matches what we’re doing.”

 

Yet it won’t be easy to crack the luxury-car market, where even established names have struggled recently. BMW slashed its full-year operating-margin forecast from 4-6% to 1-3% last month and Porsche’s operating profit plunged by 93% last year. Aston Martin’s shares have lost almost all their value since their market debut in 2018. “Denza has a massive mountain to climb,” says Murray Scullion, who recently reviewed the Z9 GT for Autocar magazine. “It is making a Porsche rival for a Porsche price. At this end of the market buyers tend to be much more brand loyal.”

 

Denza is pinning its hopes on technology, particularly its super-fast EV charging, says Mr Ge. A combination of BYD’s latest batteries and charging stations that can deliver up to 1,500kW—six times more power than Tesla’s fastest chargers in Britain and 30 times more than most street-corner facilities—is claimed to restore a battery to 70% charge in five minutes. It plans to install 300 in Britain by the end of the year. Still, how many Britons will park their Porsche in order to drive a Denza remains to be seen.” [1]

 

1. The name’s BYD. The Economist; London Vol. 460, Iss. 9506,  (Jul 4, 2026): 21.