If you found my previous post on the $3,850 Zhidou Rainbow a bit difficult to digest, try not to choke on this: The U8 “Master Edition” from BYD’s hyper-premium Yangwang brand. It’s a plus-size, four-motor electric SUV, unveiled at the Beijing auto show and priced at just over $150,000, according to our friends at CNEVPost.com. That’s a cool 1,098,000 yuan, for you currency junkies.
I think the Monster, er, Master Edition of the Yangwang U8 is a lovely bookend to the baby Zhidou Rainbow. Think of it as yet another display of China’s auto industry flexing its muscles and flaunting its technical prowess.
Yes, Chinese automakers know how to build affordable EVs. BYD, in fact, offers a sub-$10,000 model, the Seagull. Imagine: For the price of a U8 Master Edition, you could outfit practically an entire village with a gaggle of ‘Gulls.
Who knew they’d come gunning for the Range Rover and the Gelandewagen?
Back briefly to the cute-as-a-kitten Rainbow. For less than $4,000, you get a tiny 20kW motor and an equally minuscule 17kWh battery pack. Which pretty much makes this a neighborhood vehicle, although Zhidou claims a driving range of 125km with that powertrain combo. Which should just about get you from one side of Shanghai to the other without stopping to recharge.
They won’t call you underpowered in the U8 Master Edition, which aspires to Hummer status and not just because of its ridiculous sticker. Those four electric motors churn out more than 1000hp and can ford a stream up to 55 inches deep. That same stream would come to within eight inches of the Rainbow’s rooftop.
This should shatter any lingering illusion that Detroit’s last bastion of profitability and prestige — the full-size SUV — will remain impregnable in face of a future Chinese assault.
It may be time for Cadillac to start thinking about how to sandbag that Escalade IQ.
felixstrategy.com 
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