A Record Before It Even Had a Price Tag
When BYD opened reservations for the Great Tang at the Beijing Auto Show in April, buyers had little to go on other than what it looked like and a spec sheet. But within 24 hours, 30,000 people had signed up anyway. Two weeks in, that figure crossed 100,000, with most buyers committing based on a rough ballpark of what it might cost. By the time BYD officially launched the car on June 17, it had cleared 150,000 pre-orders, setting records for the highest reservations of any BYD model. The official starting price landed at $35,500, actually undercutting the estimate of around $36,700. The range tops out at $45,900, again under previous estimates. How’s that for being pleasantly surprised?
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What You Get for That Money
The Great Tang runs on BYD’s new Super e platform with a 1,000-volt architecture and second-generation Blade battery. The base trim carries a 105.8 kWh pack with up to 497 miles of CLTC range. The top Flagship version steps up to a 130.15 kWh unit, stretching that to 590 miles, with outputs ranging from 496 hp in rear-wheel drive form to 784 hp combined in the dual-motor variant, good for an unreal 0-60 mph sprint in 3.9 seconds. Flash Charging gets the battery from 10 to 70 percent in five minutes flat. A full charge takes nine. The interior is a bit excessive in the best possible way, with three dashboard screens, a ceiling-mounted rear entertainment display, zero-gravity captain’s chairs, massage seats, and a built-in cooler. The Great Tang is China’s only 2+2+3 layout 7-seater, and it’s bigger than a Hyundai Ioniq 9, for reference.
Europe Is Next, America Gets Nothing
Chinese deliveries begin later this year. BYD’s executive vice president Stella Li confirmed in a Bloomberg interview that Europe and the Asia-Pacific are both lined up to receive the Great Tang by the end of 2026 or early 2027. Pricing will be higher there, partly because pure battery-electric BYDs already carry a 27 percent combined import duty in the EU. As for American buyers, there is no US launch on the horizon, sadly. The Great Tang is a useful reminder of what the rest of the world’s EV market looks like right now: five-minute charging, 500 miles of range, sub-$40k pricing. The benchmark has moved on, and carmakers have some catching up to do.
