Chinese car giant BYD has broken landmark world speed records for the second time in a month.
Last month, BYD broke the world top speed record for EVs at over 472 km/hr with its first electric supercar, the two-door U9 Track Edition test vehicle, under its Yangwang luxury brand.
Now, the company has unveiled its Track Edition variant, the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, which has toppled the previous speed record of any production car, reaching 496 km/h, outdoing famous ICE models from hypercar manufacturer Bugatti.
It is also 80 km/h above the top speed of Rimac Nevera, which tops out at 412 km/h.
The U9 Xtreme also set a lap time of 6 minutes and 59 seconds on the iconic Nürburgring track in Germany, making it one of the fastest cars around the ring. For comparison, the previous fastest production electric car was the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, which recorded a lap in just under 7 minutes and 5 seconds.
In 2023, BYD launched its first electric supercar, the two-door U9, under its Yangwang luxury brand. A couple of months later, it was spotted being tested to reach speeds of 375 km/h, well above the original claim of 309 km/h. That car had a 960 kW quad-motor powertrain, or almost 1,290 HP.
Then, in August 2025, details from China revealed that the U9 supercar has a hypercar variant about to be launched, featuring a 2,200 kW of total power, thanks to a quad 555 kW motor powertrain.
Electric hypercars such as the Rimac Nevera and Lotus Evija have powertrains that hover around 1,500 kW output, which this U9 easily exceeds, especially in this Xtreme variant.
The U9 Xtreme is faster than the current production model, which can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just 2.36 seconds, with exact details yet to be confirmed.
The current car is equipped with an 80 kWh BYD blade battery pack that’s capable of delivering up to 450 km of CLTC range, which, of course, in the real world is likely to be closer to 370 km on the WLTP cycle.
Pricing-wise, the U9 has a starting price at the equivalent of more than $A230,000 and has been sold in showrooms across China. This Xtreme variant is most likely to be more than that.
We saw the U9 in person at Yangwang showrooms and on a test track in Shenzhen in May this year. Just from that experience, it’s easy to see that this hypercar is designed to offer more than just a track experience, of course, now, breaking the speed record.
This speed record is quite an achievement for any vehicle, let alone an EV, which should ease any concerns that EVs aren’t as fast as modern ICE hypercars.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.