China wants to slow cars down

The electric vehicle age has seen China rise to become a global automotive powerhouse, with various companies grabbing headlines not only for their car’s affordability, but also rapid speeds.

Recently the BYD Yangwang U9 Xtreme became the fastest EV to lap the Nurburgring, while the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra isn’t behind it, with both vehicles leaning on their huge power outputs to get the job done.

That accessible power has caught some motorists off guard though. Chinese social media has in recent years shown off many examples of drivers crashing after rapidly accelerating, seemingly unable to mentally compute just how fast they’re going.

As first reported by Carscoops, China wants to change that, with new draft vehicle regulations proposing all cars would be prevented from accelerating from 0-100km/h in less than five seconds in a default mode.

While faster settings would be allowed – such as those with higher power and torque outputs – these would reset every time the ignition is switched off, similar to some existing safety systems in certain cars.

“After each power-on/ignition of a passenger vehicle (excluding automatic engine start-stop), the vehicle should be in a state where the [zero to] 100 km/h acceleration time is not less than 5 seconds,” Carscoops found in the draft, titled ‘Technical Specifications for Power-Driven Vehicles Operating on Roads’.

Though some petrol-powered cars are capable of hitting these sub-five second 0-100km/h times, the regulations would more likely impact EVs which – thanks to their increased torque over traditional combustion engines – can more easily achieve the rapid acceleration times.

The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra for example makes 1139kW, good for a claimed 0-100km/h sprint of under two seconds, but is priced at 529,900 Chinese yuan (A$113,000).

Ironically, Xiaomi drew criticism from owners after releasing an over-the-air update which reduced the SU7 Ultra’s power to 662kW, with drivers also prevented from using its launch control function before certain conditions were met.

Only when owners completed a “qualifying mode lap time assessment” on an approved race track could the full power output and launch control system be activated.

While it has since rolled back the update to restore full power outputs, Xiaomi claimed the changes were to alleviate safety concerns.