World’s fastest car sets new Nürburgring record, still slower than a 911

BYD is on a record roll recently, after setting the world’s fastest single-way speed for a production car, with the Yangwang U9 Xtreme reaching 496.22km/h and getting agonisingly close to 500km/h.

At the time of that announcement, BYD also said the electric hypercar had claimed the record as the fastest production EV around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, setting a time of six minutes and 59.157 seconds.

One month later and the record has been verified, with the circuit posting a video of the run to its YouTube account for all to see how it completed the 20.832km lap almost six seconds faster than the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, and eight seconds quicker than the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT.

With a kerb weight of 2480kg, it’s clear to see the Yangwang U9 Xtreme was struggling with corner speeds, and it gained the most time on the straights thanks to its four 555kW electric motors.

While the result is impressive, it was still slower than the current manual Porsche 911 GT3, which recorded a time of six minutes and 56.294 seconds earlier this year, making do with just 375kW but a kerb weight of under 1500kg.

BYD is also limiting orders of the Yangwang U9 Xtreme to just 30 examples, however pricing is yet to be confirmed.