Why this Chinese ‘Rolls-Royce’ is better than the real thing

Can China build a proper luxury car? Now, they're certainly good at doing value for money and cars that feel more expensive than they actually are. But, something that's properly luxurious, you know, to take on a Range Rover and even a Bentley? Well, I'm not so sure. But, this is [music] the Yangwang U8 and it's China flexing its muscles going, "Hey, Europe, look what we can do." [music] It's packed full of tech and has lashings of leather. There's a ton of features to make your life easier and even smell sweeter. More on this later. Plus, apparently, this car [music] can do things that really might surprise you. And wait till we get to the performance, cuz let's just say it's got lots. Whoa! Whoa! But, at over 130,000 lb, is it too expensive for a Chinese car? I think it might be, but maybe I'm going to find out that I'm wrong. I'm Mat Watson, you're watching Carwow. The U8 has some insane performance, 1,200 horsepower and 1,280 Newton meters It's loads, but it's mad how it produces it. Look at this. It's just got a 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. How on earth does it do it? You see, this car doesn't just use Ooh. petrol power, it also uses like electric power. So, we've got a 50 kWh battery pack, which powers four electric motors, one on each wheel. The petrol engine just works as a generator to provide electricity when the main battery runs out, so you've always got charge and always got performance. The downside is that all this tech adds to the weight. This thing weighs in at 3 and 1/2 tons. So, how does the power-to-weight ratio compare to some other luxury performance SUVs? The new Range Rover SV has 220 horsepower per ton. The Bentley Speed has 264 horsepower per ton. The Tesla Cybertruck But, this Yangwang U8 has way more, 346 horsepower per ton. So, what [music] does this translate to in reality? Let's launch it. Come Come on. This Yangwang just did the standing quarter mile in 12.4 seconds, which is slightly quicker than the BMW X7 M60i. However, that car only has 530 horsepower, which is less than half than the U8. But, then the BMW also weighs 800 kg less, and that brings me on to another issue. With a few passengers [music] on board, this Yangwang could easily weigh over 3.5 tons. And in the UK, that's a bit of a problem. If you passed your driving test after 1996, you can't legally drive a car weighing over 3.5 tons without doing an extra test.