China’s BYD Yangwang U9 Just Became the Fastest EV on Earth : Automotive Addicts

Automotive

The speed crown has a new home and it speaks Mandarin. BYD’s Yangwang U9 Track Edition ripped to 293.54 mph at Germany’s ATP Papenburg proving ground on August 8, laying down a number that not long ago lived in the realm of combustion-only hypercars. The run was handled by German racer Marc Basseng and completed on Papenburg’s 12.3 km high speed oval, a venue famous for its four kilometer straights and nearly 50 degree banking that lets development drivers hold serious velocity without white knuckles.

Under the skin, the Track Edition goes well beyond the already wild U9 road car. Instead of two motors, it deploys four, one at each wheel, for a system output just shy of 3,000 horsepower and 30,000 rpm motor speeds. The package sits on BYD’s e4 Platform with the DiSus X active body control keeping the car flat and settled at triple digit speeds. For the top speed attempt, BYD leaned on custom Giti semi slicks and even knurled the wheel barrels to keep the beads planted as the torque piled on deep into the run.

There are some caveats that matter to record keepers and still make this effort impressive. BYD has presented a single direction VBOX verified peak rather than a two way average, which is the gold standard for many sanctioning bodies. Even so, the number clears the previous electric benchmarks by a healthy margin and shows that quad motor EVs can sustain huge speeds, not just post big dig numbers that fade as aero drag stacks up.

Context helps here. The previous headline belonged to Rimac’s Nevera R, a production EV that touched 268.2 mph in July, itself a jump from 2024 when Aspark’s Owl SP600 ran 272.6 mph in prototype trim. BYD’s standard U9, the one you can actually buy in China, is a different brief. It launched in 2024 around 1.68 million yuan, roughly 230,000 dollars, with 1,287 horsepower, an 80 kWh LFP Blade pack, a claimed 0 to 100 km/h in 2.36 seconds, and a party trick active suspension that can literally hop. The Track Edition pivots the U9 from theatrics to outright speed science and makes it clear BYD wants a seat at the top table of performance tech.

The venue choice adds credibility. Papenburg is where serious manufacturers chase vmax because its long straights, smooth banking, and instrumentation make repeatable data possible. That said, the video shows late run yaw and aero squirm that hint at how difficult sub 300 mph EV stability really is. It is also notable that the record car appears to run without the big fixed rear wing we saw in regulatory filings, a smart move to cut drag when the only metric that counts on the day is terminal speed.

Why this moment matters goes beyond one outrageous number. BYD has spent years being dismissed as the budget brand that builds buses and compact EVs by the boatload. In 2024 it became the world’s largest EV manufacturer by volume and it has rolled that scale into every part of its playbook, from in house batteries to its own roll on, roll off fleet. Plant a 293.5 mph flag next to that and the perception shift accelerates, especially as the company eyes exports and a broader premium footprint.

So what comes next. Expect debate about categories production versus prototype, one way versus average, street legal versus closed course. Expect European and American rivals to answer with their own runs or simulation backed claims. And expect this, BYD’s U9 Track Edition has changed the conversation. The fastest EV in the world is now Chinese, and it got there with software defined torque control, brutal motor power, and pragmatic engineering that still has headroom to go quicker.

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