Denza B8 priced! Shift aside Toyota LandCruiser! BYD-owned luxury brand Denza unleashes sub-$100K off-road assault

December 9, 2025December 9, 2025 Toby Hagon 406 Views 0 Comments B8, Denza, Denza B8 Review

Newcomer luxury brand Denza has its sights set on the luxury four-wheel drive market with its new B8 off-roader that is priced from $91,000 plus on-road costs.

Denza is BYD’s premium sub-brand co-developed with Mercedes-Benz in its early years, and the B8 is its first serious global push into luxury off-road territory.

The new Denza B8 will naturally compete with the likes of the Toyota LandCruiser and Prado, Ford Everest and Land Rover Defender while also sizing up luxury rivals such as Lexus and BMW.

Key to the Chinese-made B8 sales pitch is more metal – and features – for less money.

It also comes with a fuel-sipping plug-in hybrid drivetrain that plans to shake up the diesel-dominated off-road market, in the same way the Shark 6 from parent company BYD has sliced and diced the dual-cab ute market.

Denza refers to the system as Dual Mode Off-road (DMO).

The B8 gets two electric motors as well as a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo engine.

The front motor makes 200kW and 360Nm while the rear motor punches out 300kW and 400Nm.

The petrol engine makes 145kW and 350Nm and is predominantly a generator to create electricity to power the e-motors, but it can also directly drive the front wheels at higher speeds, above about 80km/h.

The combined system output is as much as 425kW and 760Nm, which makes the V6 diesel in a Toyota LandCruiser look undernourished (it makes 200kW/700Nm).

It even shapes up well against the most potent iteration of the Land Rover Defender, the Octa variant, that makes 467kW/750Nm from its BMW-sourced 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8.

But brute force is only part of the B8’s pitch. The cabin is where Denza really takes a swing at Lexus, BMW and anything with a luxury badge.

Available as an entry-level seven-seater ($91,000 plus on-roads) or a six-seater with middle row captain’s chairs and some extra gear($97,990), the B8 is about the size of a Ford Everest or Toyota Prado.

While many Chinese brands have plumped their cars full of features, the B8 steps it up further.

Standard gear includes 20-inch alloy wheels (including a full size spare) and adaptive dampers, tri-zone ventilation, heated steering wheel, two 50W wireless phone chargers, 360-degree camera, onboard fridge, electric adjustment for all three rows of seats, heated/ventilated/massaging front seats and heated and ventilated middle row seats.

Plus there’s an 18-speaker sound system, 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and 17.3-inch central infotainment unit incorporating wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The six-seater adds a head-up display, middle row massaging seats, digital rear vision mirror, night vision camera and ambient lighting for the middle row foot space to complement the ambient lighting elsewhere throughout the cabin.

The finishes and attention to detail are also generally higher than that of mainstream brands.

There’s virtually no basic plastic finishes, with silver highlights, leather, wood and a healthy glow of ambient lighting.

Like a Prado or Defender the B8 is also designed to tackle serious off-road tracks – albeit in a different way courtesy of its hybrid system.

While it rides on coil springs, hydraulic actuators as part of the DiSus-P suspension system can raise the ride height to a towering 310mm.

It has an approach angle of 34 degrees and a departure angle of 35 degrees, while the rampover angle is 26 degrees, ensuring it’s less likely to scrape its extremities.

It gets a rear locking differential standard while the six-seat model adds a front locking diff.

There’s no mechanical link between the front and rear wheels, with software instead controlling the torque split between either end.

That means it can effectively act like a locking differential, sending equal drive to the front and rear wheels.

A towbar is standard and it’s claimed to tow up to 3500kg.

A 3992kg gross vehicle mass gives it a payload of 702kg.

Anyone sharp on the calculator will recognise that it’s a heavy beast. At almost 3.3 tonnes – 3290kg – it’s around 600kg heavier than a LandCruiser.

There’s also a vehicle-to-load system that allows 230V appliances to be powered from the high-voltage battery.

A 36.8kWh battery is claimed to provide 100km of all-electric WLTP range.

It can be charged from home AC wallboxes in as little as 3.5 hours or a DC fast charger at up to 120W.

Once the battery has been depleted it diverts to hybrid mode, at which point BYD says fuel use increases to about 11.36L/100km. Combined range is 905km (WLTC).

First deliveries of the Denza B8 are slated for late February 2026.