BYD Owns All of Denza Two Years After Mercedes Left

BYD became Denza’s sole owner on September 14, 2024, after Mercedes-Benz sold the last 10 percent of the brand. Two years later that badge launched the Z9S sedan at 255,800 yuan ($37,910) and is putting stores into Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Mercedes said the current cars carry none of its technology. The name it once shared is now BYD’s premium export brand, still fed mostly by one Chinese MPV.

Mercedes Sold Its Last 10 Percent in July 2024

Shenzhen Denza New Energy Automotive Co Ltd showed the ownership change on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System on September 14, 2024, with BYD as the only shareholder. Mercedes-Benz Group said it had already sold that remaining 10 percent in July. Hans Georg Engel, a Mercedes executive, left the Denza board as the filing updated.

A Mercedes-Benz spokesperson said the group no longer holds any shares in Denza and that BYD is the sole shareholder. The same statement added that current Denza models do not include Mercedes-Benz technology.

That was the end of a stake, not the start of a product. Mercedes had already cut its holding from 50 percent to 10 percent in late 2021, and BYD confirmed the equity transfer on January 24, 2022. From that point Mercedes was a financial leftover. The cars coming after the D9 relaunch sat on BYD platforms, with design under Wolfgang Egger, BYD’s global design director.

HOW OWNERSHIP CHANGED

1. May 2010: BYD and Daimler form a 50-50 company in Shenzhen, later branded Denza, China’s first Sino-foreign new-energy car venture.
2. Late 2021: Mercedes cuts its share to 10 percent and BYD rises to 90 percent after weak sales.
3. August 2022: Denza relaunches with the D9 MPV under BYD operating control.
4. July 2024: Mercedes sells the last 10 percent. The China registry lists BYD as sole owner on September 14, 2024.
5. April 8, 2026: Denza stages a global launch at the Palais Garnier in Paris with the Z9GT and the D9 DM-i.

BYD and Daimler had already put more than €300 million into the venture by 2014. The early Denza EV and the later Denza X never built a following. Mercedes’s 2021 strategy update said the group would put its weight on the core Mercedes-Benz brand, and the 10 percent stub fit that choice until Stuttgart sold it.

23,000 Cars Before the D9 Arrived

Between the 2011 launch and the end of 2021, the joint venture sold just 23,000 cars. Annual volume in 2021 was 4,708. The D9, launched in August 2022 after BYD took operating control, is the break in that line. Brand sales rose to 9,803 in 2022, then to 127,840 in 2023.

DENZA ANNUAL SALES AND THE MERCEDES STAKE

Sales in 2024 were almost flat at 126,036, the year Mercedes left. In 2025 they reached 157,134, up 24.7 percent. Lian Yubo is listed as chief executive. Zhao Changjiang, the sales chief who ran the D9 relaunch, left in 2025 after four years in that job.

The D9 itself crossed a production mark on June 10, 2025, when the 250,000th unit rolled off the line. BYD’s 2025 interim filing said the model had become the world’s first new-energy MPV with cumulative sales exceeding 250,000 units. At a Beijing event in late November 2025, Denza said it had delivered the 300,000th D9. Company reports put D9 sales in 2025 at 103,460, a third straight year as China’s MPV leader on BYD’s telling.

A 30 Percent Drop in Mercedes China Deliveries

Mercedes did not sell Denza because the German brand was booming in China. Its own China car sales were already under pressure when the 10 percent went, and they have kept falling. In the second quarter of 2026 Mercedes-Benz Cars delivered 98,624 cars in China, down 30 percent from 140,397 a year earlier.

First-half China volume was 210,245, down 28 percent from 293,172. Global car sales in the quarter were 417,765, down 8 percent, with China the drag. Battery-electric cars were a brighter line, 52,852 worldwide, up 51 percent, but that rise did not offset the China hole.

The filing points to hard local competition, cautious buyers, and model-change gaps, including the S-Class. Mercedes still talks about a China customer base and dedicated local models. It no longer has a Shenzhen premium EV brand sitting beside that effort. Denza now prices into the same 300,000-yuan band where Li Auto, Aito and other Chinese names already take share from imported luxury badges.

Stuttgart’s 2021 choice to concentrate on the three-pointed star was consistent with a JV that had sold 23,000 cars in a decade. The cost of that choice shows up in 2026 as a volume gap in China and a BYD-owned Denza nameplate parking in European cities Mercedes still treats as home turf.

The D9 Still Does Most of the Work

Full ownership did not turn Denza into a balanced luxury house. It remains an MPV company with extra body styles. In the first eight months of 2024, before the sale closed, Denza sold 79,894 vehicles and the D9 accounted for 71,342 of them, or 89 percent. The N7 and N8 SUVs of that period added little.

The 2025 mix is wider and still lopsided. Company reports give this split for the 157,134 total.

2025 DENZA MIX BY MODEL

The D9 was 65.8 percent of 2025 volume. The N9, launched in March 2025 as a large plug-in flagship, was the second seller. The N8L six-seat SUV arrived in October 2025 and later added a battery-electric version from 299,800 yuan. The Z9 series, including the GT shooting brake that went on sale in China on September 20, 2024, stayed in five figures. The N7 faded to 2,169.

Through August 2026 Denza’s cumulative sales were 101,738, down 1.41 percent from a year earlier. The brand is larger than the JV ever was, and it is still waiting for a second model to behave like the D9. That is the quiet half of the reckoning. Mercedes left a minivan success, not a finished premium range.

Denza Took a Shooting Brake to Paris

On April 8, 2026, Denza used the Palais Garnier in Paris to present itself as a worldwide brand. The first two models for customers outside China are the Z9GT shooting brake, in electric and plug-in hybrid form, and the D9 DM-i MPV. The electric Z9GT is quoted at 2.7 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h, with rear-wheel steering that BYD pitches as compass U-turns and crab-walk parking in tight streets. The D9 DM-i is sold as a seven-seat cabin for 180 cm adults, with 210 km of electric range and 950 km combined.

Behind this philosophy stands the strength of 120,000 engineers across BYD, always pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We believe that this is the time for people worldwide to be inspired by technology, and DENZA is uniquely placed to deliver that.

Stella Li, Executive Vice President, BYD, Paris launch

The first European markets are Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. BYD says Denza will be in more than 30 European countries by the end of 2026, with at least 150 retail stores. Latin American stores in Brazil and Mexico were already taking orders at the time of the Paris event.

THE EXPORT KIT

• Lead models: Z9GT shooting brake and D9 DM-i MPV open Europe, with FLASH charging quoted at up to 1,500 kW.
• Charge claim: 10 to 70 percent in five minutes, 10 to 97 percent in nine minutes, and 20 to 97 percent in 12 minutes at minus 30 C.
• Network plan: 6,000 FLASH stations outside China in 12 months from the Paris event, including 3,000 in Europe.
• Other badges: some export markets get Denza-labelled off-road SUVs based on Fangchengbao Bao 5 and Bao 8 models.

A widely shared 2024 test-drive clip, in which a dealer told a driver to take hands off and the car ran into the vehicle ahead, still follows Denza’s driver-assist pitch. The Z9S now lists God’s Eye 5.0 anyway. The live argument around the cars is range, price and those assists, not whether a Mercedes engineer signed the drawings. Dealers and shoppers treat Denza as a BYD luxury line. Marketing that still hints at a German joint venture is out of date, and fact-checkers have had to say so in 2026.

What the Z9S Changes for Denza

Denza launched the Z9S all-electric sedan on September 23, 2026, in three versions. Official prices are 255,800 yuan, 275,800 yuan and 325,800 yuan, each well below the August pre-sale tags of 319,800, 349,800 and 389,800 yuan. The cuts put the car against the Xiaomi SU7 and the Xpeng P7 on price, which is the fight Chinese buyers actually shop, not a Panamera brochure.

Z9S LAUNCH SPECS

• Range: up to 1,100 km CLTC on the flagship single-motor car, 920 km on the other single-motor version, 780 km on the tri-motor car.
• Power: 370 kW rear motor on the two cheaper cars; 890 kW tri-motor on the performance car, quoted at 2.68 seconds to 100 km/h.
• Charge: second-generation Blade Battery and flash charging, 10 to 70 percent in five minutes and 10 to 97 percent in nine minutes.
• Size: 5,090 mm long, 1,980 mm wide, 1,490 mm tall, 3,025 mm wheelbase, rear-wheel steering on every version.

Denza calls the 1,100 km figure a record among mass-produced battery cars, ahead of the 1,036 km it quoted for the refreshed Z9GT in March 2026. Those are China lab numbers. They do not, by themselves, fix a brand that still needs the D9 for two-thirds of its volume. They do show what BYD is willing to do with a name Mercedes no longer owns: cut the list price hard, stack range, and send the same badge to Paris.

Mercedes walked away from a 10 percent stub in a company whose cars no longer used its parts. That decision still reads as tidy on a 2024 spreadsheet. The 2026 scorecard is a Denza that sold 157,134 vehicles in China last year, a German-market store plan under a BYD-only badge, and a sedan launched this September that starts at 255,800 yuan. The D9 remains the engine of the brand. The Z9S is the test of whether full control can sell something else.