From April 7 to 12, 2025, the Chinese luxury car brand Denza, as the official partner of Milan Design Week, held a brand launch event in Brera Design District, Italy, titled "Extraordinary Technology, Driving Luxury", officially announcing its entry into the European market. This move not only marks the deepening of Denza's globalization strategy, but also reflects the technological confidence and cultural awakening of China's automobile industry in the process of high-end and internationalization. With BYD Group as its strategic support, Denza attempts to break through the siege as a "technology leader", exploring a new path for Chinese auto companies to go overseas.
Design: Cross-cultural fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics
The core vehicle of BYD's European debut, the smart luxury flagship model Z9GT, carries the brand's deep thinking on design philosophy. The design team, led by BYD's global design director Wolfgang Egger, creatively combines traditional oriental aesthetics with European modernist design language. The body lines are inspired by the fluidity of silk, and through precise curved cutting and light and shadow transitions, a visual tension of "softness with strength" is achieved. The interior is refined from the artistic conception of mountains and rivers, combining natural materials with modern craftsmanship, and incorporating oriental cultural symbols within the framework of minimalism.
This design narrative is not a simple cultural collage, but rather conveys the aesthetic context of "Made in China" to the European market through the world's top platform, Milan Design Week. The design of Tengshi retains the rational lines familiar to European users, while giving it a unique poetic touch with oriental aesthetics, which may dispel the market's stereotype of Chinese design.
In the Brera Design District, the core area of Milan Design Week, the "DENZA EXPERIENCE" space created by Denza has become a phenomenal presence during the design week. The space combines the classic architectural elements of Milan with a sense of future technology, and presents the brand tone of "superb technology" through light and shadow installations, digital interactive screens, etc. BYD Executive Vice President Li Ke proudly announced at the opening ceremony: "The Denza brand has opened a new chapter of internationalization in Europe. With the design aesthetic genes rooted in Europe and BYD's world-leading new energy technology, Denza will bring a new luxury travel experience to European users with superb technology."
In this experience space, guests can disassemble the vehicle chassis system through holographic projection and witness the precise mechanical dance of the three motors working together. Even more clever is the implantation of cultural symbols. The recycled suede and Italian environmentally certified wood used in the interior of the car body not only echo the European users' emphasis on sustainability, but also coincide with the Chinese philosophy of "harmony between man and nature".
Technology: Solving the pain points of the European market with disruptive innovation
The "Yisanfang Platform" equipped in the BYD Z9GT has become the core weapon for technological breakthroughs. Through the three-motor independent drive and rear-wheel dual-motor steering technology, the platform has achieved subversive functions such as 180km/h high-speed tire burst stability control, intelligent crab-like lateral movement, and compass U-turn.
For example, in a demonstration on the narrow streets of Milan's old town, the vehicle used four-wheel independent control technology to reduce the turning radius, making a D-class car as flexible as an A0-class car, solving the parking problem that European users have long faced; and the high-speed tire blowout stabilization function uses millisecond-level torque distribution to ensure the body posture in extreme scenarios, pushing the safety standards of new energy vehicles to new heights.
These technological breakthroughs directly meet the core needs of the European market. They need to cope with the complex driving environment in historical urban areas, and have strict requirements on vehicle safety and controllability. As BYD Executive Vice President Li Ke said: "The design aesthetics of the Denza originate from Europe, and the technical foundation is rooted in the local area. We will use BYD's world-leading three-electric technology as support, combined with European users' understanding of luxury, to redefine the high-end new energy travel experience."
BYD's global support and breakthrough strategy
Denza chose BYD's global system as its strategic fulcrum. On the one hand, BYD's channel network and brand recognition in Europe provide a foundation for it. As of April, BYD's new energy vehicles have entered 28 European countries; on the other hand, BYD's mature supply chain and large-scale production capabilities enable Denza to achieve technology localization adaptation in a cost-controlled manner, such as building a local charging service network. This "technology output + system empowerment" model not only avoids the resource bottleneck of a single brand going overseas independently, but also forms a misaligned competition with other traditional European luxury brands with differentiated positioning.
The essence of BYD's European strategy is the epitome of the transformation of China's automobile industry from "product export" to "brand export". Different from the early path of expanding the market with cost-effectiveness, BYD chose to build brand narratives through cultural carriers such as design weeks and technology salons, and establish emotional connections through "technology shows" and immersive experiences. This dual-wheel drive of technological hard power and cultural soft power not only reshapes European consumers' perception of Chinese brands, but also inspires Chinese automakers to explore new ideas for international markets. When technological leadership and cultural resonance form a synergy, the resistance to market access may be transformed into a driving force for brand premium.
From the technological aesthetics display at Milan Design Week to the crowd-watching craze caused by the "easy three-way parking" on the streets of Europe, BYD's European journey is a business expedition and an industrial declaration. In the field of electrification and intelligence, Chinese brands are injecting oriental power into the reconstruction of the global automotive industry as "leaders". This transformation that began in Milan may be the historic turning point of China's smart manufacturing from "breaking the game" to "setting the standard".
