After it was spotted for the first time in public, BYD’s new electric sports car looks ready to take on the Porsche 911. With influence from former Lamborghini and Audi designer Wolfgang Egger, the new EV sports car is almost ready for its big debut.
Can BYD’s new EV sports car rival the Porsche 911?
We got a preview of the upcoming electric sports car in April after BYD revealed the Fang Cheng Bao Super 9 concept.
Fang Cheng Bao is BYD’s fifth sub-brand, launched in June 2023. The company said its lineup will range from “off-road vehicles to sports cars.”
BYD launched the first vehicle under the brand, the Bao 5, last November. At its spring conference earlier this year, the sub-brand revealed three new models: the flagship Bao 8 SUV, a smaller Super 3 SUV, and the Super 9 convertible sportscar.
According to CarNewsChina, BYD’s new EV sports car was spotted in China for the first time. The images (see them below) reveal the sporty two-door EV on a tow truck.
Although it’s covered in the blue camouflage we’ve seen on past BYD prototypes, you can still see the vehicle’s aggressive design sitting low to the ground with a sloped front end.
BYD’s new Super 9 EV sports car concept (Source: BYD)
The vehicle is still under development, and no headlights or rear bumper are apparent. As CarNewsChina notes, sources claim the new EV will launch under the Denza brand rather than Fang Cheng Bao.
Denza was BYD’s joint venture with Mercedes-Benz until the Chinese EV giant took over 100% ownership earlier this year.
Chinese media expects BYD’s new EV sports car to have four seats, like the Porsche 911. However, the photos do not confirm this.
BYD’s Porsche 911 two-door sports car was seen in China for the first time
The new electric sports car is expected to feature a powertrain setup similar to that of the Denza Z9. This could include three electric motors packing nearly 1,000 hp (710 kW).
BYD’s Denza will debut in Europe with the Z9 GT shooting brake next year. Will the new EV sports car be next? Check back for more details soon.
Source: CarNewsChina
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New car buyers like to talk about the latest tech and resale value, but most people don’t buy new cars. The used car market is 3x bigger than new, and if you’re content to let the last guy take that big depreciation hit by scoring a great deal on a reliable, low-mile used car you could save thousands on your next EV.
But looking into the data shows trends that are much closer to the kind of think you’d expect to see before COVID, with high-end luxury models like S-Class Mercedes that trade on being new and shiny taking massive depreciation hits and more mainstream offerings from brands like Toyota and Honda that trade on economy and reliability holding strong.
That usual luxury brand hit seems like it’s being compounded over at Tesla, where Elon Musk’s highly publicized political leanings have polarized support for the brand, and alienated a huge portion of the market. Demand for new and used Tesla vehicles has plummeted, and iSeeCars reports that the Tesla Model S suffered the biggest percentage price drop of all makes and models over the last twelve months, showing the pioneering electric sedan’s average price in June 2025 at $46,700, nearly 16%, or $8,800 lower than it was 12 just months earlier.
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This isn’t a post about Tesla, though (not intentionally, at least). Instead, it’s about those EVs that have lost the most value since they were first sold new five-ish years ago. So, if you’re looking for a great deal on a pre-loved EV, you could do a lot worse than the list, below, presented in order from biggest “loss” of value.
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The Fiat Topolino Vilebrequin is a new beach town cruiser that captures the elegance, glamour, and relaxed vibe of the French Riviera. More significantly, the updated EV also heralds Stellantis’ plans to double EV production at its Kenitra Assembly Plant in Morocco.
Closer to a Mercury Villager Nautica or Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson than a new model on its own, the new Topolino Vilebrequin features colors and fabrics inspired by the French surfwear brand, and is based on the Dolcevita version of Stellantis’ electric microcar. With its open sides, a soft rollback roof, and turtle-tastic fabric prints, it’s ready to whisk you off on a carefree summer adventure in France or Italy – which are, coincidentally, the only two markets the “collector’s edition” Vilebrequin Topolino is currently available in.
“This encounter between the Fiat Topolino and our iconic sea turtle gave rise to a high-quality, lower-impact, and perfectly whimsical design,” says Roland Herlory, CEO of Vilebrequin. “(It is) the definitive summer toy, and the perfect witness to sun-soaked memories still to come.”
Like the standard Topolino, the new Vilebrequin model remains electronically limited to a top speed of 45 kph (just under 30 mph), and is equipped with a 5.5 kWh battery pack that ensures up to 75 km (about 45 miles) of electric range. Prices start at €13,490 ($15,810), and if you don’t want one you’re dead inside.
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Fiat Topolino Vilebrequin
The Vilebrequin Topolino is just the latest version of Stellantis’ electric microcar platform that underpins the Citroën Ami, Opel Rocks-e, and Fiat Topolino. Annual production of the little EVs has grown from 20,000 units and is reportedly on track for 70,000 in 2025.
Now, Mopar Insiders is reporting that number is about to get even bigger. Stellantis’ Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region, Samir Cherfan, announced plans to more than double the production capacity at the company’s Kenitra Assembly Plant in Morocco, from some 230,000 vehicles per year to more than 530,000.
The factory was opened in 2019, and the planned €1.2 billion ($1.4B) expansion is expected to add around 3,100 new jobs to the factory’s employee roster.
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Electric bikes are a menace. They go almost as fast as a car (if the car is parking), they’re whisper quiet (which makes them impossible to hear over the podcast playing in your headphones), and worst of all, they’re increasingly ridden by teenagers.
By now, we’ve all seen the headlines. Cities are cracking down. Lawmakers are holding emergency hearings. Parents are demanding bans. “Something must be done,” they cry at local city council meetings before driving back home in 5,000 lb SUVs.
And it’s true – some e-bike riders don’t follow the rules. Some ride too fast. Some are inexperienced. These are real problems that deserve real solutions. But if you think electric bikes are the biggest threat on our roads, just wait until you hear about the slightly more common, slightly more deadly vehicle we’ve been quietly tolerating for the last hundred years.
They’re called cars. And unlike e-bikes, they actually kill people. A lot of people. Over 40,000 people die in car crashes in the US every year. Thousands more are permanently injured. Entire neighborhoods are carved up by high-speed traffic. Kids can’t walk to school safely. But don’t worry – someone saw a teenager run a stop sign on an e-bike, so the real crisis must be those darn batteries on two wheels.
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It’s amazing how worked up people get over a few dozen e-bike crashes when many of us step over a sidewalk memorial for a car crash victim on the way to the grocery store. We’ve been so thoroughly conditioned to accept car violence as part of modern life that the idea of regulating them sounds unthinkable. But regulating e-bikes? Now that’s urgent.
To be clear, this isn’t about ignoring the risks that come with new technology. E-bikes are faster than regular bikes. They’re heavier, too. And they require education and enforcement like any other mode of transport capable of injuring someone, be it the rider or a pedestrian bystander. But the scale of the problem is what matters – and the scale here is completely lopsided. Let’s take New York City, for example. It’s got more e-bike usage than anywhere else in the US, and there are still only an average of two pedestrians per year killed by an e-bike accident. That number for cars? Around 100 per year in NYC. It’s not complicated math – cars are 50x more lethal in the city.
And yet, the person on the e-bike is the one getting the stink eye.
We’ve become so numb to the everyday destruction caused by automobiles that it barely registers anymore. Drunk driving? Distracted driving? Speeding through neighborhoods? It’s just background noise. But the moment someone on an e-bike blows through a stop sign at 16 mph, it’s front-page news and a city council emergency.
Here’s an idea: If we want safer streets, how about we start by addressing the machines that weigh two and a half tons and can hit 100 mph, not the ones that top out at 20 or 28 and are powered by a one-horsepower motor the size of an orange.
But we don’t. Because cars are familiar. Cars are “normal.” Cars are how we built our entire country. And so we turn our attention to the easy target – the new kid on the block. The same old playbook: panic, overreact, and legislate the hell out of it.
Sure, an e-bike might startle you on a sidewalk. But a car can climb that sidewalk and end your life. Which one do we really need to be afraid of?
This isn’t a strawman argument, either. Cars are literally used as mass casualty weapons. It happens all the time. It happened last night in Los Angeles when a disgruntled car driver deliberately plowed into a crowd outside a nightclub, injuring over 30 people. And that wasn’t the only car attack yesterday. Another car rammed into pedestrians on a sidewalk in NYC yesterday morning, leaving multiple pedestrians dead. These aren’t exceptions. This is the normal daily news in the US. It’s depressing, but it bears repeating. This is normal. These are everyday occurrences. Twice a day, yesterday.
While we’re busy debating throttle limits and helmet rules for e-bikes, maybe we should also talk about how tens of millions of drivers still routinely speed, blow stop signs, or scroll Instagram at 45 mph in a school zone. Or how car crashes are the number one killer of teenagers in America. Or we can continue to focus on the kid who forgot to put his foot down at a red light while riding an e-bike to school.
This isn’t satire anymore – it’s just sad. It’s a collective willingness to avoid a real, genuine threat to Americans while simultaneously scapegoating what is, by comparison, a non-threat.
The truth is, electric bikes aren’t the menace. They’re a solution. They’re one of the few glimmers of hope in a transportation system drowning in pollution, congestion, and daily tragedy. They make mobility cheaper, cleaner, and more accessible. And yet we treat them like an invasive species because they disrupt the dominance of the automobile.
It’s time to stop pretending we’re protecting the public from some great e-bike emergency. The real emergency is that we’ve accepted cars killing people as a fair trade for getting to Target five minutes faster.
So yes, let’s make e-biking safer. Let’s educate riders, build better bike infrastructure, and enforce traffic rules fairly. Those are all important things. We absolutely SHOULD invest in training programs to educate teens on safe riding. We absolutely SHOULD cite and fine dangerous riders who could threaten the lives of pedestrians. But let’s stop pretending that e-bikes are the problem when they’re clearly a symptom of a much bigger one.
If you’re really worried about the dangers on our streets, don’t look for the kid on the e-bike. Look for the driver behind them, sipping a latte and going 20 over the speed limit.
Now that’s the menace.
Image note: The first and last images in this article were both AI-generated, and represent everyday car/bike interactions
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