BYD’s YangWang U8 SUV goes borderline amphibious in new ‘Emergency Float Mode’ [Video]

YangWang, the luxury sub-brand of Build Your Dreams (BYD), is showcasing some impressive capabilities in its flagship U8 SUV it wants to float by you. The SUV has been on sale for months in China, but BYD wants to remind you that the U8 actually has an emergency mode in which it floats and can navigate back to solid ground. See more in the video below.

YangWang, which directly translates to “looking up” or “admire” is a new luxury brand under the BYD umbrella introduced earlier this year. Before it was making literal waves with its flagship PHEV, the U8 SUV, YangWang turned some heads, and some wheels at the Shanghai Auto Show.

It was there that the young luxury automaker showcased its new intelligent body control system, called DiSus, as well as unique usage of BYD’s proprietary individual wheel drive (IWD) technology platform is calls “e⁴.”

At the same time, the audience in China got to see the U8 perform a crabwalk feature that utilizes the DiSus system, as well as a u-turn mode that spins the vehicle 360-degrees on a dime. Not to be outdone, BYD then rolled out an all-electric supercar called the U9, that uses DiSus to dance, adjust its height, and even hop inches off the ground.

One other cool feature in the YangWang SUV in addition to its “Make a U-turn” feature, is its arguably amphibious capabilities in “Emergency Float Mode” showcased in the video below.

Watch the YangWang U8 SUV easily cut through water

Today, BYD posted a video of a camouflaged YangWang U8 SUV performing Emergency Float Mode, which is passively triggered as a safety failsafe in deep water. 

When the vehicle’s intelligent wading detection system detects that the vehicle is floating, it automatically switches to the emergency mode, enabling driving, steering and U-turns in the water to help users reach safe land quickly. Have a look:

What’s interesting is that the YangWang U8 has already been on sale in China since April and the company website shows a brief clip of Emergency Float Mode without any camouflage (seen above), so it’s unclear why BYD chose to showcase a camo’d SUV now, but it’s still a marvel to witness.

Perhaps it was a response to this video of Tesla taking the Cybertruck out for a swim, just to remind everyone who was doing it first. We’ve seen other EVs endure deep water testing in tanks, but the U8 is genuinely floating and using its wheels as propellers in the wild. That’s pretty damn cool.