Yangwang U9 Xtreme — BYD

Tesla Roadster Who?

This is getting silly. But it will change everything.

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…