Here we have a Denza EV, seen in Beijing in 2016. The good Denza was painted in a shiny shade of white with darkened windows. The signature grille was shiny too, whereas the wheels were of a darker gray. The Denza EV is rare in Beijing so I was very happy to see this one in my own street.
The Denza was made by a company called Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology, commonly called ‘BYD Daimler’, a joint venture between China’s BYD and Germany’s Daimler.
The brand name was Denza, and their first car was simply called Denza EV. The joint venture had a difficult start. It was born in 2012 and the Denza EV launched in 2014, but only in Shanghai. In that year I made a test drive with a brand new blue example! Sales in the rest of the country didn’t start until much later.
The Denza EV was loosely based on the platform of the first generation W245 Mercedes-Benz B-Class. The gasoline drive train was taken out and replaced with the electric drive train from the BYD e6.
The electric motor had an output of 117 hp and 290 Nm, and was mated to a 47.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery. It wasn’t very fast; top speed was 150 km/h and a 0-100 took a massive 14 seconds (!).
Range of the Denza EV was 253 kilometers, which wasn’t that bad for the time. Electricity consumption was a rather high 17 kWh per 100 kilometers. Charging took 3 hours on a 22 kW fast charger, and a massive 32 hours on a 7 kW wall charger at home. In 2014 the infrastructure for EVs was simply not there yet, so Denza had big plans to roll out their own nationwide charging network, but it never came to that.
Slow speed and slow charging, not a good mix, and it was expensive too. Price in 2014 started at 369.000 yuan. The Executive version, as seen on the photos, cost 399.000 yuan!
Taken all of this together, it was no wonder sales were a big disappointment, and for many years the Denza EV was the only Denza around, going without any upgrade for many years. Finally, in 2018 the Denze EV was upgraded and renamed to Denza 500. A year later, in 2019, Denza launched the Denza X, basically a BYD with some new body panels.
Production of the Denza 500 ended in 2020 and the X is currently the only Denza on sale. Not a big success this joint venture, and for many years we have heard rumors about its demise.
The high price was not totally unjustified. The interior was luxurious, fitted with leather seats, wood panels, a fully digital dash, and an 1o inch screen for the infotainment.
It was spacious too, lots of room for the legs and enough space for three.
The Denza EV looked like a hatchback but is was actually a sedan with a trunk.
The characters are 腾势, Tengshi, the Chinese name of Denza.
The DENZA badge in a funky punky script.
Due to its limited availability and slow sales the Denza EV is a pretty rare car. Later on, with the Denza 500, sales went up a little so those are more common. I will post an separate story on a 500 later on.