Ever since I rode in a BYD in China I've thought it would be great to be able to get one in the USA. It just really felt complete, put together and polished in a way that I haven't seen in a "normie" U.S. car in a long time. Too bad our country uses high tariffs and regulatory barriers to protect its dinosaur companies.
Ever since I ride them constantly in Chilean Ubers I wish other EVs were more prevalent because how the aluminum bends and creaks sometimes when I sit on the backseat doesn’t make me feel any safe (I weight 90kg).
Haha what was the manufacturer? I drove a Changan Uni-T there and it was not an EV and handled like a boat but a very serviceable car. To be honest, I was surprised because it was the first Chinese car I'd driven and my mind was blown how far they'd come.
By dinosaur companies, you mean Tesla and Elon Musk
dinosaur would be a compliment for tesla which designs/releases one new car every decade (each delayed by a decade from initial release date) :)
Which is even more embarrassing, because they're miles ahead of the carmakers that came before them.
Not really
At this point, a byd is a far superior car for the price. You should test drive one when you get a chance to escape North Korea, er, I mean America.
3000 hp? Not sure if that's measured at the "crank" or the dynamo, but that's over 2MW, probably pushing 2.5MW of power draw from the batteries assuming a motor efficiency of 90% and some other losses. Apparently that's getting drawn at 1.2kV from the batteries, so "only" around 2kA of current draw.
That top power draw would drain the 80kWh batteries in around 2 minutes, though I'm guessing you'd hit thermal throttling or catastrophic failure before that. The batteries are allegedly rated to 30C, meaning 2 minutes to full discharge at max current.
I'm curious how the heat dissipation of EVs compares to ICE vehicles. You have much higher efficiency vs combustion and get to split the power between 4 motors instead of one engine, but you don't get the heat capacity of a massive engine block, or the convection of cold air intake + hot exhaust out the tailpipe.
> how the heat dissipation of EVs compares to ICE vehicles
Xiaomi Su7 Ultra had a 400W twin fan, 530W liquid pump and a 28kW heat dissipation for powertrain.
28kW of dissipation is pretty solid, though obviously is irrelevant during a short burst with hundreds of watts of heat generated. I guess the frame itself act as the fallback heatsink for storing excess heat in these scenarios? Because by my math, a modest 100kg heatsink (no idea if that's reasonable) would reach 270°C in only around 45 secondw if it's trying to handle 250kW+ of heat transfer (270C is roughly the max differential for heat pipes,liquid cooling might be significantly lower limit). And obviously the batteries can't handle 270C.
Yeah man, this is obviously a lie ... *yawns*
video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD9v1WyAgLA
same car doing Nürburgring Lap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td_c1zeEn2Q
> The U9 was developed by German car designer Wolfgang Egger, who previously served as a head designer for Alfa Romeo, Audi and Lamborghini, and began working for BYD in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangwang_U9
Seven minutes for the Nordschleife? Sabine Schmitz could have done that with a van.
But honestly, ther are a Lot of production cars that went considerably faster. And the non-production Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO did it in 5:19, which is an entirely different league.
This is why the Ring is the absolute benchmark of how well rounded a car is.
>of how well rounded a car is.
For performance applications. None of these cars are great daily drivers.
That's not the point of the Nordschleife :-)
A lot of the cars for which lap times are an marketable feature are at least decent daily drivers.
These are not those cars though.
… to quote James May!
and here we learn that fast and a straight line does not necessarily mean fastest round the track.
There is a “car” in my hometown in Coventry that goes (I think) 700 mph, but I can only do it in a straight line because it’s powered by two turbo jet engines
It broke the sound barrier too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThrustSSC
And it is very difficult to fine a straight road that is long enough to reach the top speed. At the Volkswagen test track the Bugatti had to leave the oval with 200km/h to reach top speed on the connected 9km straight track.
> Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO did it in 5:19
If anyone hasn't seen this, I highly recommend it, even if you're not a car fan.
what is "boost"? my car does not have that
Insane. 368 top speed, I can't even watch it without flinching. The first time it hit seventh gear I was like: "what, one more?".
That just looks unreal. I wonder if this is reaching the point where a driver can't keep up anymore.
They can do better
It's the fastest EV lap currently.
> Seven minutes for the Nordschleife? Sabine Schmitz could have done that with a van.
Sabine Shmitz did the 19,100m length in 10:08.49 using the ford transit van.
That's a far cry from 7:14
I did not expect that anyone would take the first part of my comment seriously, but here we go.
However, this year a Ford SuperVan 4.2 made the Nordschleife in 6:48.393, so even without Sabine Schmitz a van was faster than the BYD.
There’s no point comparing apples to deep fried oreos for caloric density. The 919 Evo is a fully de-restricted prototype based off a legendary homologated race car, not remotely in the same category. The BYD U9 is a road-legal EV, comparing the two doesn’t mean much.
Funny you mention the Ford SuperVan because that’s much closer to the 919 Evo in the "no homologation no limits" category than anything you could register and drive off a lot. A fairer and much more impressive benchmark is the road-legal Ford Mustang GTD running a 6:52. That's still far quicker than the BYD, with roughly two thousand less horsepower.
> I did not expect that anyone would take the first part of my comment seriously, but here we go.
> However, this year a Ford SuperVan 4.2 made the Nordschleife in 6:48.393, so even without Sabine Schmitz a van was faster than the BYD.
You are spouting such absurdities, that is a van in name only:
https://carbuzz.com/nurburgring-ford-supervan-42-lap-record-...
And it was driven by Romain Dumas someone far more qualified to set such a record than Sabine Shmitz - despite your "even without Sabine Shmitz" disingenuous wording. Sabine is half television personality half racing driver...
Meanwhile, the Tesla Roadster is nowhere to be seen. China really has arrived.
You need to enter a K hole to see it.
It's wild that after a hundred years there is still exponential progress in the power output of cars. The most unusual part to me is how EVs are fundamentally a consumer technology, so it all rapidly falls into mass production territory; eg. Xiaomi sells a 1527hp car for $73k. Horsepower is rapidly reaching 'solved' territory; even at its record speed, BYD's car wasn't even power limited.
Power for power’s sake is not necessarily a good thing.
There is some indication that putting rapidly accelerating cars on streets is leading to a proliferation of accidents.
A car with a 4 second 0-60 time can reach 40mph, a speed lethal to 80% of pedestrians, in under 80 feet from a standstill. That's the distance from the limit line to the far crosswalk when crossing a 5 lane road.
Putting this level of performance (and better) into boring suburban SUVs bought by ambivalent consumers is negligence.
For sure; the US kills literally hundreds of thousands of people in ways other countries have solved, and bigger faster vehicles seems at odds with the lack of driver and infrastructure responsibility here. I don't want to make light of that.
I just had the numbers run to check this. About 650,000 fewer people would have died over my short life so far, if the US had the vehicle fatality rate of my home country.
The power isn't much use for driving down the road but maybe we can hook it to fans and have flying cars at last.
Funny that it packs 3000hp while the Chiron « only » needs 1600hp to achieve mostly the same speed.
At that speed the limiting factor likely moves from raw power output to things like cornering ability on the track, grip of the tires, aerodynamics, downforce, driver skill, mechanical linkages, etc.
There's a reason why all the world's land speed records since the 1930s [1] get set at the Bonneville Salt Flats or similar flat desert terrain. FWIW, the speed listed in this article was exceeded in 1937. The hard part is not necessarily going fast, it's going fast in a street-legal vehicle.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_land_speed_records
For a top speed run, cornering ability is next to useless. You need grip to put down the power and be stable at speed, the corners taken for top speed runs are fairly wide. The bigger issue here is for how long can a BEV sustain max power output - it can deplete its battery in 2 minutes. EVs also can only produce top power whilst battery is at top voltage, since draining it drops voltage, max power drops with charge levels. The tyre grip itself is fine, the issue is tyre durability - they can usually last less than 20 minutes at top speed.
It is an impressive feat of engineering to get to a vmax record in a BEV.
I'll need evidence of "Top power at Top Voltage." Since so little capacity is at that part of the curve, It'd make sense to design around (as in avoid, not feature) it rather than use it.
I suspect theres inductance and capacitance enough that even if the motors can't handle the voltage, it can be "clipped" until the pack comes down. (Especially since fmu these are 3phase AC motors, the motor driver is already regulating voltage and current to produce whatever the optimal waveform is)
Well you can see reports of people drag stripping teslas, and comparing speeds at 100 vs 90 vs 50% charge. Whatever the reason, you do slow down.
Apples to broccoli comparison. Besides what I mentioned being optional (I'm sure it has downsides, probably cost), comparing road legal cars with a supercar is... interesting.
You don't need a Tesla to figure this out, my toy RC monster truck does the same thing.
There was quite an interesting youtube from Engineering Explained speculating it had enough power to do 400 mph. There may have been other constraints limiting things like the tyres being safe and apparently the battery only has capacity for 2 mins at full power, plus bits may overheat and the like.
(https://youtu.be/z6q7du1q2U8)
It's also interesting that the fastest time on the Nürburgring at 5 min 19 was from a Porsche hybrid with 900 hp, a fair bit quicker than the BYD which took 6:59 I think. The Porsche had a lot more downforce than the BYD.
>the battery only has capacity for 2 mins at full power
"The tires on the Veyron can only last 15 minutes at top speed, but that's ok because the fuel tank only has capacity for 7 minutes at top speed." (From memory, IIRC, Top Gear on the Veyron)
> 5 min 19 was from a Porsche hybrid with 900 hp
You're talking about the non-production Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo race car. A Corvette ZR1X did 6:49 with a third of the HP
Yeah, the weight and battery are the limiting factors. Their battery tech is impressive though.
I watched a video of the speed test a few days ago and it looked like the BYD car was still accelerating when the top speed was reached, such that it could have gone faster than the record they were aiming for—there was a speed curve and it wasn't plateauing. Of course there are lots of possible reasons why the car couldn't have managed a higher speed, but I wonder if it's like incredibly tall skyscrapers having secretly validated a taller version in the wind tunnel so they can change plans if competition catches up during construction.
The best batteries have like 40 times less energy density than engines running on oil derivatives. Even considering that electrical engines are 90% efficient while combustion engines get like 25% efficiency, that still leaves the factor of 10 for energy density. That implies much bigger weight. And to compensate the engines must be more powerful.
Head to head, the Chiron SS would probably smoke this car at the top end, heat is a way more difficult problem to deal with for EVs than ICEs.
Well, power at top speed will probably be similar, they don't seem to be too different aerodynamically (maybe the Bugatti has got the edge there, but still, won't be a 2x difference).
The question is also how much power the battery can continuously output, if it's the 3000hp for 15 seconds that won't be of much use for a max speed test.
It seems to me like building the fastest EV has nowhere near the complexity of building the fastest ICE car. Way too many moving parts and fine tuning required to get an engine to 440Kmh (Chiron SS) than an EV with 4 big motors.
I recommend you watch this video (the channel's pretty good in general):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6DiHOidcg
While I agree with your statement in broad strokes - I'd reframe it as the same amount of engineering takes you much further in an EV than an ICE car. Considering this, the Chinese really swung for the fences, and what they made here is quite impressive
People have been putting engines that powerful in cars since Campbell's blue bird in the 1930s. I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's doable in custom vehicles.
The hard bits are connecting that power with the ground long enough to reach speed safely, and storing enough energy to do so. EVs don't solve that.
Chiron still has that Piëch handwriting on it. It's driveable enough to take your wife to the opera. Full regulatory compliance, low wind noise at high speeds, all that. I don't want to say it is compromised, but it's not as extreme as it could be.
The closer ICE comparison would be Koenigsegg (447 kph/278 mph), Hennessy Venom GT (435/270) and SSC Tuatara (455/283, no shenanigans). SSC have reached 295, they were clearly aiming for 300. It's no 308 but it's reasonably close.
All these are also relatively small companies with relatively low budgets -- none of the big manufacturers seem interested in top speeds anymore.
Yet none of the other mainstream automakers has done so.
Are they even trying? It seems like the only reason to do this is for publicity. Maybe a manufacturer that's known for their ICE vehicles would want an opportunity to show off their electric vehicle engineering but I don't know any it would make a difference for. US manufacturers even sell electric trucks. It's not like any mainstream manufacturer needs to rebrand to sell electric vehicles.
> Are they even trying?
Nope, probably too busy faking emission results, lobbying at the EU parliament , or designing overpriced mid tier cars in the US
Research also might trickle down to production cars. Maybe research for some extreme project has more opportunity to find unexpected improvements compared to more tightly budgeted production research
Isn't the complexity in storing and and moving the electrons rapidly? Stringing a bunch of 18650s with a copper wire harness won't cut it. You've got to invent some novel chemistries and new materials to pull it off.
Well, while impressive I would like to see them do a second lap right after or try the Nürburgring (seems they have, way off pace versus ICE cars).
One thing many car channels are pointing out is that the car could've reached even better numbers looking at how easily it reached its record pace. I wonder if the bottleneck is the battery. Hell, it supposedly discharges at full power in 2 minutes.
(Edit: noting they did the ring)
The second fastest lap at the ring, and at least another five records in the top ten, are all EVs:
VW ID.R
Xiaomi SU7 Ultra
Lotus Evija X
F-150 Lightning SuperTruck
Nio EP9
Ford Transit SuperVan
Cars built for straight line speed are rarely fast in a track – you won’t find the Bugattis breaking any fastest lap records either.
This comment has the same vibe at "football is easy, because the rules are simple". Something is only easy if you don't have to compete with others. If it's "easy" for you, then it is easy for others. So being the best/fastest is hard.
It might indeed be more difficult to push obsolete technology ever further.
Which shows that ICEs are a ridiculous choice for performance cars?
No, EV are too heavy. On an actual track they loose to lighter ICE cars since they corner better. Plus for a prolonged race EV might run out of battery.
are we bound to see a huge increase in speed limits as EVs start to dominate?
no
True, if your goal is "the fastest car, period" then you're going to pick the best technology for that. And as of now onwards, that's not Internal Combustion Engines. As you say, there are way too many moving parts in a legacy tech ICE engine.
In case you're curious about the driver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Basseng
From the official site: https://www.yangwangauto.com/en/car/u9-xtreme
- 6:59.127 Lap Time - The first lap record on the Nürburgring
- 496.22 km/h - The Fastest Car on the Planet
- 1200v - World's first series-production model with ultra-high-voltage platform
- Over 3000 HP - Global horsepower record for production cars
- 30000 rpm - Global fastest motor rpm - 4 motors
Is it a production car if they have made one and have sold zero?
The Yangwang U9 is a production car. This is a boosted version, the 9X Track Edition.
The regular 9X costs about US$236,000 before Trump tariffs. About half of a Ferrari. Also jumps potholes, can do tank turns, and has some autonomous capability.[1]
There's also the Yangwang U8, which is an hybrid off-road SUV. Does tank turns, and floats.
It's really a promotion for their other cars, but these things are sold in the UAE, Kuwait, and China, at least.
AMG One did it in 6:29.xxx
Soviet Union builds largest space shuttle.
In case you don't speak mph, https://www.byd.com/mea/news-list/yangwang-u9-xtreme-is-the-... has converted it: 496.22km/h
Well, Autotrader is the one that converted it.
But will it have full self driving by the end of the year?
Even if they did they still won't have caught up, because Tesla has had full self driving at the end of every year for the past 8 years.
BYD made their Autonomous Driving Features free (1).
But they don't make false claims about them.
(1)
https://insidechinaauto.com/2025/02/11/byd-rolls-out-autonom...
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/11/cars/china-byd-smart-driv...
I find it interesting that Chinese brands copy Western brands, then Western brands copy Chinese brands and so on. Result is that new cohort of cars look like characterless AI slop.
Most cars have looked like that long before AI.
The kind of things that's going to put the last nail in the coffin of the german industry (in terms of brand image).
Worlds fastest car has never really been a German thing. See for example https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/lists/fastest-cars-in-the...
Look at the partners section. There's Palantir in there.
It'll be a battery swap. There was that video of emergency battery pack ejection for battery fires, then you need a loading mechanism.
I haven't tracked LeMans much, I know the Toyota hybrids have been dominating it, but is it unrestricted hybrid drivetrains? Can builders make any kind of hybrid / regen / battery size / recharge drivetrain?
If not, I'd love to see what builders can do with go-nuts hybrids: wankel compact recharging, max-solid-state chems, etc.
It was designed by a German
That's probably one of the least interesting records. Besides the tires, what's the problem reaching that speed? Need a big engine and some downforce. This is much easier than building a car that cam set a record on the track.
I guess it's interesting that you can do it in a street legal production car.
> This is much easier than building a car that cam set a record on the track.
Why ? You "just" need a car that can steer and brake, what's the problem with steering and braking ? Need a steering wheel, good brake pads and tires
On the track you need a good setup which has a lot of factors and can be very hard to achieve. Way more complex than going straight as fast as possible