The Yangwang U9 Xtreme reached 503.17 km/h on a road in Abu Dhabi.
Yangwang, BYD’s luxury brand, announced on Friday, November 6, that its electric supercar U9 Xtreme reached 503.17 km/h during a test on a public road in Abu Dhabi. According to the manufacturer, this is the first production car to exceed 500 km/h. However, the term “production car” should be taken with caution, as only up to 30 units will be made, each priced at over 20 million yuan.
The test began on November 1, announced by Hu Xiaoqing, Yangwang’s sales director. Previous records for the U9 were set on closed test tracks. This time, the car drove on a regular road, having to cope with high temperatures, side winds, and desert dust. The new record is 6.95 km/h better than the previous record for the same model. At 503.17 km/h, the car covers almost 140 meters per second.
According to CarNewsChina, which cites posts on Weibo, the U9 Xtreme earned a Guinness World Record title for this speed run.
Yangwang did not specify whether 503.17 km/h was the average over two round trips or the maximum speed for a single trip.
From 472 to 503 km/h in just over a year
In August 2025, an engineering prototype of the standard U9 reached 472.41 km/h on the ATP Papenburg track in Germany. This was the world speed record for electric vehicles at the time. The Xtreme Yangwang variant was unveiled and pre-sales for it began on September 20, 2025. Still in September, the Xtreme model achieved 496.22 km/h in Papenburg and set a time of 6:59.157 on the Nürburgring North Circuit, becoming the first production electric car to break the 7-minute mark. BYD presented the production version at the Beijing auto show in April, where it was the most expensive car on display with a price of over 20 million yuan (equivalent to over 11 million zł).
2220 kW from four motors and a 30C battery
Xtreme is built on a 1200 V platform, which BYD claims to be the world’s first mass-produced architecture at this voltage. The battery is a modified version of the Blade cells, capable of discharging at 30C, meaning a current that could theoretically empty it in about two minutes. The e4 drive system consists of four independent motors, each with 555 kW of power and rotating speeds up to 30,000 rpm. Together, they deliver 2220 kW, with BYD stating this results in over 3000 horsepower and 1217 horsepower per ton of weight, while the torque vectoring system adjusts force distribution 100 times per second.
The regular U9, available in China since February 2024, has four motors, each with 240 kW of power (for a total of 960 kW), and costs starting at 1.8 million yuan (approximately 1.1 million zł). Thus, the Xtreme has more than twice the power.
To handle speeds over 500 km/h, BYD equipped it with the DiSus-X active suspension, reinforced carbon-ceramic brakes featuring titanium alloy components, and China’s first semi-slick tires designed for such speeds. The manufacturer also redesigned the cooling system. Externally, the Xtreme differs from the regular U9 with an aerodynamic package: a large carbon splitter at the front, a diffuser, a front bumper with two air intakes, and a high rear wing mounted at the top (known as a swan neck).
Yangwang did not disclose plans to sell the U9 Xtreme in Europe.
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