Off-road enthusiasts rejoice as one of China’s premier automotive manufacturers, BYD, has revealed its flagship YangWang U8 sports utility vehicle has an ‘Emergency Float Mode’, allowing it to wade through water using its wheels as a makeshift propeller system.
While the luxury SUV has been available for purchase for several months, the BYD-owned brand only recently showed off the vehicle’s incredible party trick in an X post that has subsequently received more than 50 000 views.
The 23-second video shows a camouflaged YangWang U8 wading into a body of deep water, revealing close-up views of the wheels working underwater, performing a turn on the spot, and exiting the water.
According to Interesting Engineering, the YangWang U8 features intelligent wading sensors that detect when the SUV is entering deep waters, automatically triggering the U8’s Emergency Float Mode.
When in its amphibious form, the vehicle shuts off its engine, raises its suspension, opens the sunroof and displays the water depth on the dashboard’s central control screen.
It’s not the first time the U8 has turned heads. At this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, the luxury SUV showed off several other cutting-edge features, including what its creators call its intelligent body control system, DiSus, that allows the futuristic off-roader to raise and lower its floor pan by up to 15 centimetres, and BYD’s self-developed independent wheel-drive platform (IWD) called e4.
The huge U8 SUV also wowed onlookers at the show when it performed a crabwalk using its proprietary technologies.
The U8 is classified as an electric range extended vehicle meaning it sports a traditional two-litre internal combustion engine that powers a 49 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion phosphate Blade battery, according to the motoring blog, Car News China.
A full battery, coupled with its 75-litre fuel tank, will give motorists an impressive range of roughly 1 000 kilometres and its four motors provide a reported 295 horsepower to each wheel, with a mindblowing total of 1 180 horsepower.
The U8’s top speed is limited to 200 kilomeres per hour and goes from 0-100 kilomeres per hour in a speedy 3.6 seconds – roughly the same acceleration as a BMW M3, despite weighing nearly four tons.
If the Chinese brand is to take on the likes of Mercedes-Benz and other high-end brands in the SUV sector, it must continue to push the envelope when it comes to innovation, said Fang Cheng Bao, BYD founder and CEO.
At $150 000, the U8 is the most expensive electric SUV in China. BYD has yet to give a timeline for its international debut.
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/suvs-emergency-float-mode-deep-waters
