Yangwang U9 Xtreme sets two speed records at over 312 mph in Abu Dhabi

The Yangwang U9 Xtreme has set two Guinness World Records after running past 312 mph on a public road in Abu Dhabi. The four-motor electric hypercar took the single-direction highest-speed marks for both a production car and a production electric car in one timed pass.

The car and its maker

Yangwang is the luxury division of Chinese giant BYD, positioned much as Lexus is to Toyota. The U9 Xtreme, badged U9X, is more than twice as powerful as the standard U9, drawing over 3000 hp from four electric motors, one driving each wheel.

The previous electric production mark stood at 308 mph, a figure the U9 set last year.

Yangwang plans to build only thirty of these U9X models. The three-thousand-horsepower total is, as one outlet has it, three Veyrons concentrated into a single car, and it arrives through a motor at every corner.

Battery and chassis

The battery architecture is distinct from the standard U9 as well. The U9X runs a 1200-volt system that can deliver and absorb enormous current with much better thermal efficiency than the base car manages.

Even nearly depleted, at 20 percent charge, the pack can still pump out 1800 kilowatts, about 2414 hp, or take back 700 kilowatts through regenerative braking.

The chassis works to keep all of that usable. A motor at each wheel allows fine torque-vectoring control with minimal wheelslip, and the U9X carries electric dampers that clamp down on squat and dive under hard acceleration and braking.

Active aerodynamic elements further steady the car at speed. Indonesia's Giti Tires developed the rubber for the attempt, a set capable of surviving the forces and the enormous speeds the record required of it.

The 4.35-mile stretch of public road used for the record was closed at the time. Crews cleaned it of debris and even went back over the surface looking for any wires left behind by the street sweepers.

This is not a car a buyer simply licenses and takes onto the autobahn. The U9X is a demonstration piece for BYD's propulsion technology as much as it is a road machine.

The record field

We have tracked this car before. In our roundup of the fastest cars in the world, the Yangwang U9 Xtreme held the outright production-car record at 308.4 mph from a run at Germany's Papenburg test track.

That list also notes the caveats around rivals. The Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut claims 330 mph from simulation rather than a timed run, and the same gap between claimed and verified applies to the Hennessey Venom F5 and Bugatti Bolide above 310 mph.

The Devel Sixteen and its 347 mph claim we left out entirely, because the full-power V16 car has never been independently timed. Against that field of simulation-backed numbers, the U9X now owns the fastest verified mark.

In our guide to the best luxury SUVs we placed the Porsche Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid Coupé first, with electric models filling five of the ten top places. A closing section covered the Chinese contenders, including BYD's Yangwang, which sells across China, Europe and the Middle East.

Those brands are not yet offered in the US or UK. Abu Dhabi offers Yangwang a place to run its car at full speed in a market where it already sells.

Three-thousand-horsepower production cars were inconceivable a decade ago; now one from a Chinese luxury marque holds the outright record.

Speed records come and go. The story of the electric supercar is shifting from whether electricity can compete to how quickly each new benchmark falls.