Cars

China's answer to the Rolls-Royce Phantom is a 5.6-metre electric limousine

The Graze · November 9, 2026

A dark blue Rolls-Royce Phantom with its chrome Pantheon grille on display indoors

Photo: Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

BYD made its name selling electric cars on price. Now it wants to sell one on presence. On November 7, at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental in Abu Dhabi, its luxury brand Yangwang unveiled the Altior, a fully electric four-seat limousine aimed squarely at the back seat of a Rolls-Royce. Sheikh Zayed bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended, according to the Abu Dhabi Media Office. Six days earlier, on a closed stretch of motorway in the same emirate, Yangwang's U9 Xtreme ran 503.17 km/h.

What BYD has actually announced

Yangwang's release is long on culture and short on numbers. Altior comes from the Latin for "higher". In China the car is called Dingyao, after the ding, an ancient bronze ceremonial vessel, and BYD says the design took three years. The grille is treated like jewellery, twelve light elements turn to greet the owner, and coach doors open to 80 degrees at the front and 90 at the rear, with umbrellas stored in the doors.

The dimensions are the serious part: 5,600 mm long, 2,030 mm wide and 1,590 mm tall, on a 3,500 mm wheelbase. Rear passengers get 1,209 mm of legroom, two reclining "zero-gravity" massage seats, a 21.4-inch screen that folds down from the roof, front and rear fridges (the rear one warms as well as cools) and a 39-speaker Dynaudio system. The trim runs to yellow Hetian jade on the air vents, Suzhou silk embroidery and semi-aniline leather. The boot holds 532 litres.

Underneath is BYD's e4 platform: four motors, one per wheel, adjusting torque more than 100 times a second. That is what lets the car turn on the spot, hold its line after a high-speed blowout and, BYD says, stay afloat in an emergency if it ends up in water. The second-generation Blade battery is rated at more than 1,000 km on China's CLTC test cycle. BYD has not published power, battery size, weight or charging speed, and says those details will follow.

Yangwang's existing saloon, the U7, in Moscow. The Altior sits above it. Photo: Retired electrician, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Price and timing: what is reported

The release gives no price. CnEVPost, which covers the Chinese EV industry, reports that pre-orders opened in China for the four-seat Shanhe Dingyun limited edition with a 300,000 yuan deposit, an expected price of 2.08m yuan (about $310,000, and not yet final) and a cap of 399 cars worldwide. Yangwang itself says only that the edition is a limited run. Inside China Auto reports deliveries are expected in the second quarter of 2027. An Executive edition and a five-seat version will follow; neither has a price.

Altior vs Phantom vs Ghost

Spec	Yangwang Altior	Rolls-Royce Phantom	Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II
Length	5,600 mm	5,762 mm	5,545 mm
Wheelbase	3,500 mm	3,552 mm	3,295 mm
Wheelbase as share of length	62.5%	61.6%	59.4%
Height	1,590 mm	1,646 mm	1,570 mm
Power	Four electric motors, output not published	6.75-litre twin-turbo V12, 571 PS	6.75-litre twin-turbo V12, 571 PS
Starting price	2.08m yuan expected in China, about $310,000	$555,350 in the US	$370,750 in the US
Price per metre of car	about $55,000	about $96,000	about $67,000

The Altior is 55 mm longer than a Ghost and 162 mm shorter than a Phantom, but its wheelbase is only 52 mm short of the Phantom's and 35 mm longer than the Ghost Extended's (5,715 mm long, 3,465 mm wheelbase). It gives a bigger share of its length to the cabin than either Rolls. BYD also quotes 740 mm from the front axle to the pedals, the long dash-to-axle distance designers use to signal prestige, here with no engine to fill it.

The prices are not like for like. The Altior figure is a Chinese pre-sale number converted at CnEVPost's rate; the Rolls-Royce figures are Car and Driver's US starting prices before options. But it is the comparison buyers will make.

Length and wheelbase of the Altior against the Phantom, Ghost and Ghost Extended. Chart: The Graze

A second-generation Rolls-Royce Ghost in London, the Altior's closest rival in size. Photo: Charles from Port Chester, New York, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Can a Chinese brand sell status?

Scale is the first problem, though not in the way you might expect. Rolls-Royce delivered 5,664 cars in 2025, according to figures reported by BMWBLOG: 3,291 Cullinans, 1,002 Spectres and 993 Ghosts, with the Phantom last among current models. Yangwang sold 4,785 cars in 2025 and 3,546 in the first ten months of 2026, by CnEVPost's monthly count. BYD's luxury arm is already in the same volume band as Goodwood. What it does not have is a used-car market, a heritage, or a client who asks for it by name.

The Phantom remains the benchmark for the back seat. Photo: OWS Photography, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Our take

Strip away the jade and this is a brand trade, not a car business. If all 399 limited editions sell at 2.08m yuan, that is roughly $124m of revenue, pocket money for BYD. The return BYD is after is the right to be mentioned in the same sentence as Rolls-Royce, and it has bought that with one launch in a palace.

The harder question is whether the people who buy Phantoms want what BYD is selling. Rolls-Royce's own electric car is a warning. Spectre deliveries fell 47% in 2025, while the V12 Cullinan rose 27%. The very rich have not been rushing to plug in, and the Altior is electric only. Its 1,000 km range is a CLTC figure, a cycle generally kinder than Europe's WLTP or America's EPA; nobody should read it as motorway miles.

Where it can win is the back seat. A Phantom buyer is paying for 120 years of provenance and a name everyone recognises. A chauffeur-driven executive in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi or Shanghai, or a government fleet buyer, is paying for legroom, screens, quiet and a price tag that looks reasonable on a board report. That is why BYD launched it in the Gulf, not in Mayfair.

Lexus ran the same play against the S-Class in 1989: undercut on price, over-deliver on engineering. It won buyers. It never became Rolls-Royce. The numbers to watch are the ones BYD has not given yet: power, battery, weight, a Gulf price and, in 2028, what a two-year-old Altior is worth.