BYD's New Flagship Da Han Gets 1,008 km Range — With an LFP Battery

[00:00:00]BYD just showed its hand and the numbers are pretty staggering. The company's new flagship sedan, the Han, I think that's how you say it, d a h a n, Han, [gasps] also called the Great Han, has just appeared on China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Purchase Tax Reduction List.

[00:00:20]The headline figure, this tells us the specs and the details for this new EV.

[00:00:25]Headline is 1,008 km of range. That's 626 mi. Now, it's on the CLTC cycle, so the WLTP range will probably be something like 850 km from a lithium ion phosphate battery.

[00:00:44]Worth pointing out, guys, that 83.3% of all batteries that went into anything in China in the month of June were lithium ion phosphate, 83.3%.

[00:00:56]So, that's pretty amazing considering there's no exotic chemistry here.

[00:01:00]Although, we do believe that the new blade battery version two, the higher [snorts] energy density versions are doped with manganese to improve the energy density, but no major I mean, no solid-state battery here, just LFP done at a scale that is pretty damn impressive from a car company.

[00:01:19]Let me walk you through what BYD has actually built here.

[00:01:23]The battery pack is big, but not enormous. It's a 102.3 kWh LFP battery built by FinDreams, BYD's in-house battery subsidiary. The car that I owned as of until yesterday, the Zeekr 7X all-wheel drive performance model, has almost the same size battery, a 100 kWh battery, but it has 543 km of WLTP range. The WLTP range for this vehicle will be about 300 km more with the same size battery.

[00:01:54]That's impressive.

[00:01:56]The number that jumps out at me, though, is the battery pack's weight. It's not light.

[00:02:01]In fact, it weighs about the same as my first car.

[00:02:05]726 kg. That's about 1,600 lb.

[00:02:10]That is over 30% of the entire car's curb weight.

[00:02:15]Think about that.

[00:02:17]Nearly a third of this vehicle is the battery.

[00:02:21]Now, some people will look at that and say it proves LFP is too heavy for long-range cars, but I think it actually proves the opposite. On the Electric Viking website, I'll put a link in the description below, we have more articles about electric cars and battery technology than any other website that I'm aware of in the world.

[00:02:38]So, check that out. Link is in the description.

[00:02:43]And there you'll find our videos and analysis and articles about everything going on in the EV world.

[00:02:49]BYD has taken the cheapest, safest, most durable chemistry that we have for EVs right now that's in mass production and squeezed over 1,000 km of range out of it in a car expected to sell for around $44,000 US.

[00:03:03]That's the price of a probably like a performance Model Y in China.

[00:03:08]For a flagship limousine, that's what this is, their flagship car.

[00:03:13]And it is actually limousine sized. So, the fact they're getting so much range out of what is actually a very big car is pretty impressive. Actually, no, it's very impressive.

[00:03:23]The Han measures 5,256 mm long. So, it's >> [snorts] >> not far off 5.3 m long.

[00:03:31]It's the size of a Toyota Ranger, like maybe two generations ago.

[00:03:36]It's also quite wide. It's 2 m wide.

[00:03:38]It's 1,510 mm tall and sits on a quite long wheelbase, 3.13 m.

[00:03:45]For context, that makes it 66 mm longer than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

[00:03:52]So, 6.6 cm longer than a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

[00:03:56]BYD's not chasing the 3 Series here.

[00:03:58]This is aimed squarely at German full-size flagships at probably a fraction of the money. At least in China, it'll be a fraction of the money anyway.

[00:04:09]There are two fully electric versions of this car, and there is a PHEV.

[00:04:14]The rear-wheel drive EV gets a single motor putting out 370 kW.

[00:04:19]That's 496 hp with a curb weight between 2,260 kg and 2,325 kg depending on spec.

[00:04:28]Range is 970 to 1,008 km CLTC.

[00:04:33]That weight figure is actually 2,300 kg for a car this size with a battery this big, it's actually very, very good.

[00:04:42]The all-wheel drive flagship runs two motors for a combined 570 kW, which is 764 hp.

[00:04:50]But, it weighs a bit more. It's 2,505 kg.

[00:04:53]And it still gets up to 880 km of CLTC range.

[00:04:59]If you get the version with smaller wheels, to get the bigger wheels, it drops down to 820 km of range.

[00:05:05]A near 2.5-ton luxury sedan, well, actually 2.5 tons it is, with supercar power and over 500 mi of range from a lithium ion phosphate battery, uh yeah, that's a story.

[00:05:18]There will also be a DM-i plug-in hybrid version pairing a 115 kW, 154 hp, 1.5-L turbo engine with a 200 kW electric motor and a 55 kWh battery good for a claimed 470 km of electric-only running range.

[00:05:38]But, the pure electric car is the one here that matters. It's the one that shows where BYD's engineering technology these within the last year anyway is really going.

[00:05:48]I don't have any idea why BYD bothered making a plug-in hybrid version, which is going to be heavier, much more complicated, and have some real disadvantages like servicing an air problem an engine having exhaust, etc. Why bother? I mean, if the regular version has a 1,000 km of range, why bother making a plug-in hybrid version? I don't really understand that.

[00:06:09]Maybe you guys do. Let me know what your thoughts are on that in the comment section below. What am I missing?

[00:06:14]Anyhow, one thing that the filing doesn't tell us though is charging speed, but we do know that this is going to come with BYD's new you know, their new advanced basically 1,000-V architecture most likely or 800-V It's going to have either way a minimum of 1,000 kW fast charging.

[00:06:33]So, it'll be able to charge, from what we can see, based on other similar cars to this, from 10 to 97% in around 8 minutes and 50 seconds.

[00:06:44]Let's just put that in 9 minutes.

[00:06:46]One more piece of context. The existing BYD Han sold 3,285 units in China in June.

[00:06:54]The Han L, the longer-bodied version, moved only 584.

[00:07:01]The Han family needs a refresh. It's not selling all that well, but to be honest, BYD has so many models. I mean, they know they've got I think 84 different models. So, it is probably a little bit of um you know, probably a little bit of confusion from buyers as to which model they go with.

[00:07:18]And who knows if it's luck. The Han family though is going to be really upgraded with this new car.

[00:07:24]I mean, S-Class size, bit bigger than S-Class, in fact.

[00:07:27]Price will be less than half the price of an S-Class, well under that.

[00:07:31]And a lot of power, over just over 1,000 km of range in the rear-wheel drive version.

[00:07:37]This is a fantastic car.

[00:07:40]The price though, the price is estimated be $44,000 as I mentioned earlier.

[00:07:45]I think at that price this car is a bargain.

[00:07:48]Would I buy this car? No, but I think there's probably going to be quite a lot of well-heeled Chinese people who would go, "Well, I was thinking about a a 7 Series BMW or a Mercedes S-Class, but this is better and I'll get one of these." What do you think? Let me know in the comment section. And by the way, if you want to see this article, the full article on our website, you can.

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