BYD’s Yangwang U9 breaks Nordschleife record for electric production cars
BYD is currently chasing records – and not just in terms of global electric car sales figures, having now overtaken Tesla worldwide. With the U9 Extreme, they are also chasing trophies. In September, the hypercar from BYD’s subsidiary brand reached a speed of 496 kph on the test track in Papenburg, Lower Saxony – not only outperforming all electric cars, but also breaking the world record for the fastest production car in the world, set five years ago by the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+. The V16 rocket from the VW Group was almost 6 kph slower.
6:59.157 minutes: enough for a new record
The car manufacturer has now announced that BYD’s four-motor, 2,220 kW flatfish has won another trophy in Germany. Specifically, on the legendary Nordschleife of the Nürburgring, where car manufacturers from all over the world battle it out for each hundredth of a second with their sports models.
In the ‘Green Hell’, as the demanding race track in the Eifel region is also known, the U9 Extreme burned a lap time of 6:59.157 into the asphalt. It was piloted by German racing driver Moritz Kranz, who has many years of experience on the Nordschleife.
Following this, the Chinese sports car has added another title to its list of achievements – BYD’s flagship model is now the fastest electric supercar and the fastest production electric car ever on the Nordschleife. It beat the previous record holder’s time by more than five seconds. The previous record holder also came from China: Xiaomi’s SU7 Ultra took 7:04.957 minutes in early summer. The four-door sedan had snatched the title from the Croatian hypercar Rimac Nevera.
A prototype of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra was more than half a minute faster at around 6:22 minutes. However, as it was not street legal and was anything but standard production, it belongs in a different category.
“We are dedicated to pushing the limits of what can be achieved through technology, and the Nürburgring is such a legendary challenge for cars and drivers that it is only natural for our engineers to pursue their dreams there… The limited-edition U9 Xtreme has proven that it is not only the world’s fastest car in a straight line, but also a vehicle with the performance and dynamic qualities necessary to break lap records on a circuit with a wide variety of corners,” said BYD’s vice president and head of Europe, Stella Li, commenting on the success.
The highest speeds in the automotive world
The record is, of course, the perfect advertisement for the Yangwang U9 Extreme, which is limited to 30 units and available in China at a price of 1.68 million yuan, equivalent to around €200,000. While 800-volt systems are currently considered the cutting edge of technology in Europe, the two-seater impresses with its 1,200-volt architecture. The brand’s signature blade battery with LFP cells has an exceptionally high discharge rate of 30C – around ten times that of most everyday electric cars.
Meanwhile, its electric motors reach speeds of up to 30,000 revolutions per minute. The adaptive ‘DiSus-X’ suspension was specially tuned for the record run on the Nordschleife, and the nearly 2.5-ton coupe rolled on special semi-slick tyres.
This article was originally published by Elias Holdenried for electrive’s German edition
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