For years, seven minutes was the line that separated very fast cars from the truly extraordinary at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. No production electric car had ever lapped the 20.832-kilometre circuit faster. On 22 August 2025, the Yangwang U9 Xtreme did it, with a time of 6:59.157.
The Lap
German racing driver Moritz Kranz, who has completed more than 10,000 laps of the Nordschleife in his GT3 and LMP3 career, was at the wheel. The Nürburgring officially certified the time in October 2025, confirming the U9 Xtreme as the fastest electric super sports car around the Green Hell.
It beat the previous production EV benchmark, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra's 7:04.957, by almost six seconds. Two years earlier, the Rimac Nevera had set 7:05.298. In little more than two years, the fastest electric production car lap had dropped by more than six seconds.
Not the Standard U9
The car that set the record is not the U9 you can order from a Yangwang showroom in China. The U9 Xtreme, or U9X, began life as the U9 Track Edition and became a production model of its own in September 2025. Production is limited to 30 cars worldwide, each one individually customised.
Where the standard U9 runs on an 800-volt platform with 1,305 PS, the Xtreme uses what BYD calls the world's first mass-produced 1,200-volt platform. Four motors, each spinning to 30,000 rpm, produce more than 3,000 PS. For the Nordschleife, Yangwang added a completely redesigned cooling system, titanium-alloy carbon-ceramic brakes and GitiSport e·GTR² PRO semi-slick tyres developed with Giti. Those tyres are road-certified to CCC and ECE standards.
Then It Went 496 km/h
Lap times were only half the story. On 14 September 2025, three weeks after the Nürburgring run, Marc Basseng drove the U9 Xtreme to 496.22 km/h (308.4 mph) on the high-speed oval at ATP Automotive Testing Papenburg in Germany. BYD claims it as the top-speed record for any production car, not just electric ones, ahead of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+.
It also beat the car's own earlier mark. In August 2025 the U9 Track Edition had reached 472.41 km/h at the same track.
Why It Matters
A lap of the Nordschleife has long been one of the hardest tests a road car can face. It rewards braking, cooling, grip and stability as much as straight-line speed, the areas where electric cars were once said to struggle. The U9 Xtreme passed that test and then added a top-speed record that petrol hypercars had held for years.
Thirty cars will not change what most people drive. But the technology behind them, from 1,200-volt electrics to suspension that can make a car jump, comes from the same company that builds the BYD Seal. When records like these fall, the effects tend to reach everyday cars sooner than you might think.
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