he Yangwang Altior Is BYD’s $310,000 Answer To The Rolls-Royce Ghost, Coach Doors And Umbrellas Included

BYD’s luxury brand revealed the Yangwang Altior in Abu Dhabi this week, and the first version up for reservation in China carries a pre-sale price of 2.08 million yuan, or about $310,000. That covers the Shanhe Dingyun limited edition, which requires a 300,000-yuan (roughly $44,000) deposit and should reach customers in the second quarter of 2027.

Yangwang is aiming the Altior at the Rolls-Royce Ghost and the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class, and it doesn’t hide where it looked for inspiration. Rear-hinged coach doors, umbrellas in the door shuts, two-tone paint and a hand-painted coachline read like a checklist of Goodwood signatures. Altior is Latin for “higher,” and the car sits above the U7 sedan, which starts at 628,000 yuan.

The Altior Borrows Heavily From The Rolls-Royce Playbook

The rear coach doors open to 90 degrees, and the front emblem is reportedly 24K gold, set in a grille made of 137 gem-cut elements. The launch car rides on 21-inch wheels and wears a lidar sensor on the roof, the one exterior detail you won’t find on a Rolls-Royce.

The cabin seats four, and the rear pair are massaging zero-gravity recliners that a one-touch mode tilts back while closing the sunblinds and dimming the lights. Yangwang quotes 1,209 mm (47.6 inches) of rear legroom, and there’s a 21.4-inch ceiling screen, fridges front and rear and air vents trimmed in Hetian jade. The 532-liter (18.8-cubic-foot) trunk beats the Ghost Series II’s 464 liters (16.4 cubic feet).

BYD hasn’t said how much power the Altior makes. It rides on the four-motor e4 platform from the U8 and U9, and recent filings rate the four-motor U7 sedan at 1,000 kW (1,341 hp), so we’d be surprised if the Altior came up short on shove. The battery is a second-generation Blade pack, with a claimed range of more than 1,000 km (621 miles) on China’s optimistic CLTC cycle. BYD claims a 10 to 70 percent charge in about five minutes on its megawatt Flash Charging network.

How Does The Altior Really Compare With The Rolls-Royce Ghost?

The current Ghost Series II is 5,546 mm long and the Altior is 5,600 mm, so 54 mm (2.1 inches) longer. The wheelbase is where it pulls ahead. At 3,500 mm (137.8 inches), it’s 205 mm (8.1 inches) longer than a standard Ghost’s and 35 mm (1.4 inches) longer than the Ghost Extended’s, though the Extended is still longer overall at 5,716 mm.

The bigger gap is the powertrain. The Ghost still runs a 563-hp V12, Rolls-Royce’s only EV is the Spectre coupe. There is no word whether a Rolls-Royce Ghost electric will follow suit. That leaves Yangwang pitching Ghost buyers an electric limousine, something Rolls-Royce doesn’t build.

Where Will The Yangwang Altior Be Sold Outside China?

Yangwang already sells cars in the UAE through Al-Futtaim, and BYD says the brand reaches Europe next, starting with the UK in 2027. There’s no word yet on UAE pricing or whether a US launch can actually happen. The Ghost Series II starts at $370,750 before destination in the US and about AED 1.35 million (roughly $368,000) in the UAE.

That Gulf price is the one to watch. Rolls-Royce delivered 993 Ghosts worldwide in 2025, and Yangwang delivered 3,251 cars in China in the first nine months of this year. Whether Rolls-Royce clients will cross-shop a BYD-owned limousine will likely depend on where they live.

In North America, which accounts for about a third of Rolls-Royce deliveries, and in Europe, more than a century of prestige should keep the Ghost safe for now. China is a different market, where buyers already pay Maybach money for homegrown flagships and Huawei’s Maextro S800 has passed 10,000 units built. The Gulf, where the Altior debuted, sits somewhere in between. Either way, the Altior exposes a gap in Goodwood’s lineup: its only electric car is the two-door Spectre, and an electric sedan would be the most convincing reply.

[Photos: BYD]