Given the recent explosion of Chinese automotive brands, you’d be excused for not knowing about Yangwang. It’s the Lexus to BYD’s Toyota, basically, making the high-end, super-duper stuff while BYD does Seals, Sealions and the other more prosaic electrified machines. It’s probably best known for the U8, a G-Class-style SUV that can spin in its own wheelbase and float in water for half an hour. Of course. Now Yangwang has another feather to its bow, as it reckons it’s made the fastest EV on the planet.
It’s called the U9 Track Edition, and is powered by a quadrumvirate of 555kW (744hp!) motors, each of which can spin at up to 30,000rpm and offer up independent torque vectoring. Max power is beyond 3,000hp, and Yangwang claims a power-to-weight ratio of 1,217hp per tonne. It’s a proper EV tour de force, by all accounts.
Not least because it features the world’s first mass-produced 1200V ultra-high-voltage architecture (it’s the first we’ve heard of beyond 800V), but also for the ‘DiSus-X Intelligent Body Control System’ to keep the body level and tyres in contact with the ground, plus semi-slicks developed in conjunction with Giti. Because even the cleverest of EVs still need four rubber doughnuts to get down the road. Apparently, the U9 also features a special lubricant between tyre and wheel to ‘minimise relative slippage between the tyre and the rim during hard acceleration or braking.’
And it’s definitely capable of plenty of both. At ATP’s test track in Papenburg earlier this month, a Yangwang U9 Track Edition driven by Marc Basseng reached 472.41kmh, or 293.29mph. An astonishing speed for any car, let alone a battery-powered vehicle – they aren’t exactly famous for sustaining big numbers. While there was no official timing or adjudication involved, there seems little doubting the claim given the onboard VBox vid. Currently the Rimac Nevera R is the fastest by the book, at 268mph, with the Aspark Owl unofficially nudging into the 270s. Should Yangwang wish to pursue an actual world record, the car looks more than capable.
Well, to a point. We’re used to VMax runs these days characterised by unerring stability, but not here. The U9 would do more than 472kmh, it seems, though Basseng understandably backs out of it as the car appears to waver from its intended line. It’s enough to make your blood run cold – imagine having to correct a car going in a straight line at almost five miles a minute.
Nevertheless, Yangwang claims it has ‘redefined’ the sustainable supercar with this effort. Certainly it would be fair to say that the goalposts have been moved. Though the U9 Track Edition might need more than its optional carbon front splitter before Basseng has a go at cracking 300…