They say China progresses fast, but this fast? At the end of August, BYD announced that its Yangwang U9 Track Edition reached an astonishing speed of 293.54 mph, making it by far the fastest ever electric car. Now, just a few days ago, they also announced that the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, which will be limited to around 30 production units, became the fastest ever road-legal production car. This is an astonishing feat that will have a huge ripple effect on the rest of the automotive world, but it still begs the question: where is the new Tesla Roadster?
Firstly, how did the U9 Xtreme pull this off?
Well, it uses the same 1,200-volt battery pack as the Track Edition, which is just a rewired BYD LFP blade battery. That’s right, the fastest car in the world uses the same cells as a £20,000 budget EV. It also uses the same four-motor setup, with each wheel having its own 555 kW (744 horsepower) motor, for a total power output of 2220 kW or 2,977 horsepower! That makes the Xtreme and the Track Edition the most powerful production cars ever made, being nearly 50% more powerful than the second most powerful. The Xtreme uses a different suspension, tyre and wheel set-up, and has optimised its aerodynamics for high speed, such as including a longitudinal “shark fin” for stability. So overall, it isn’t actually that different from the Track Edition.
These little tweaks allow it to rocket up to a top speed of 308.4 mph! That might seem like a small step up from the previous fastest production car, which Bugatti took back in 2019 with a top speed of 304.8 mph. But don’t forget, the faster you go, the more viscous the air becomes, and the harder it is to accelerate, so this 4.4 mph difference is actually a pretty reasonable improvement.
However, there is also the context of the record. The Bugatti speed record was set on a private 12-mile-long straight road. This gave it ample time to reach its actual top speed. Because acceleration drops off as speed increases, having a good few miles to let those last few miles per hour trickle onto the speedo can make all the difference.
Meanwhile, the U9 Xtreme set its record on the ATP banked oval test track in Germany, which only has a 2.5-mile straight! The U9 Xtreme was able to go around the banked corners at a staggering 180 mph, but to go from that to 308.4 mph and back down to 62 mph for the next corner, all in 2.5 miles, is utterly insane. It shows just how much harder the U9 accelerates at high speed than the Bugatti. Additionally, if you watch the video, the U9 Xtreme hadn’t actually stopped accelerating before the driver had to brake for the corner. In fact, at 300 mph, it was still accelerating fairly linearly at the same pace an economy car does from 0 to 60 mph. So, the U9 Xtreme could likely go significantly faster if you put it on a longer road.
This wasn’t a small win. BYD has just completely dunked on the elites of the automotive world.
Okay, so why does that matter? None of us will ever own a car like this or have the need or means to drive at these speeds. Well, it actually matters a lot.
Take Tesla’s supposedly upcoming new Roadster. This was going to be Tesla’s halo car. It was intended to be a test bed to develop next-gen technology, claim performance records, make combustion cars look moronic, and prove Tesla’s superiority. That is why Musk was able to take hundreds of millions in pre-orders and deposits.
But Musk failed to follow through, and five years after it was expected to hit the streets, there is still no new Roadster. Either way, he U9 has already eclipsed it. So, even if Musk finally delivered on his promises, it wouldn’t be a halo car. It would be an also-ran.
And then there is the broader context. Don’t underestimate the power of Top Trumps. Children will look up to BYD for setting this record. Petrol-head automotive journalists will be forced to talk about how the fastest car in the world is a Chinese EV. Car fanatics will buy BYD performance cars because they have the same technology as the U9 Xtreme. Don’t believe me? The VW Golf VR6 is now seen as a highly valuable collector’s item because the Bugatti Veyron used the same engine technology it developed. That is why VW got involved with the Bugatti speed record project, because it would solidify them at the top of the automotive world.
All of this engineering kudos has now been taken away from Western manufacturers for the first time ever. This will change how people perceive the entire automotive industry, not just in terms of combustion versus electric, but in terms of which nations and brands are leading the way.
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Sources: Autoexpress, Electrek, Will Lockett
The roadster is now a failed product even before completing design
Having such speed and acceleration: “It is an honor that I dream not of.” But I enjoy hearing about such things.