In December, BYD’s premium brand Denza had its first electric model obtain approval for sale in Australia, in the form of a luxurious people mover.
Now, a camouflage van has been spotted by cheek8475 on Reddit, being transported on the back of a truck in Melbourne and was shared by David C, an avid reader of The Driven.
The vehicle’s wrap doesn’t give too many details away, and most panels and badges are covered.
Having said that, the design is very much that of the Denza D9, and this test vehicle appears to use Giti-branded tyres, commonly used by the brand, including on the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, which hit over 496 km/h last year, breaking the speed record for any production car.
Other design elements, which are the same as the D9, are the rear lip spoiler on the tailgate, as well as the sliding door and front door handle design.
As mentioned above, the D9 was approved for sale in December, and the paperwork showed two variants to arrive locally, with the first being a single-motor FWD version, as well as a dual-motor AWD variant.
The single-motor variant delivers 230 kW, while the AWD version bumps that to 275 kW.
This 5.25 metre-long people mover will be the longest car the brand sells in our market, even above the Denza B8 SUV,which means in theory that it should also make it the most spacious offering from the brand.
Both variants in the paperwork showed a weight between 2,764 – 2,865 kg, which is in line with other larger electric SUVs and people movers.
Also in the approval documentation, both variants will also be coming with 18-inch wheels, although the wheel design for our market is yet to be revealed.
The Denza D9 people mover has been a popular model in China and comes in both a battery electric version and a PHEV offering.
The current generation of the battery electric version is powered by a 103 kWh battery pack, delivering around 480 km of WLTP expected range.
Denza, as a brand, currently has two models, the off-roading B5 and B8 SUV,s which can be purchased from Denza’s website, which showcases two rugged PHEV off-roader models as the initial cars that will be offered in the Australian market.
Pricing of those models start at $74,990 for the 5 seater B5, while the 7-seater B8 starts at $91,000 before on-roads.
Staying on Denza Australia’s website, there are two other models that are not yet revealed and are labelled as “Coming Soon”. One of these does look a bit like the Denza D9, but that’s to be confirmed officially in the coming months, while the other appears to be a shooting brake or wagon of some sort.
Detailed specs of the D9 model are likely to be announced closer to the launch, likely in the first half of 2026. We look forward to seeing how this car shifts buyer preferences towards luxury electric people movers.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.