This EV just overtook Bugatti as world’s fastest production car

An electric car from Chinese company BYD has just overtaken Bugatti to become the world’s fastest production car.

Called the U9 Xtreme, the EV comes from Yangwang, a sub-brand of Chinese automotive giant BYD. On 14 September, the car hit a top speed of 496.22 km/h, which is 308.4 mph – or about 4mph quicker than the previous record for a road-legal production car, held since 2019 by the Bugatti Chiron Supersport 300+.

An upgraded version of the regular Yangwang U9, the record-breaking U9 Xtreme edition uses a 1,200-volt system architecture (50 percent up on most other high-performance EVs), to provide four electric motors with over 3,000 horsepower. Three thousand. That’s double the power of the Bugatti Chiron and about a thousand more than the Rimac Nevera R and Lotus Evija.

The record-breaking run took place at the Automotive Testing Papenburg test track in Germany, and came soon after the U9 Xtreme (then called the Track Edition) set a new electric car speed record, of 293.5 mph, earlier this summer. Prior to that, the standard U9 – which is currently on sale in China for around £200,000 and has ‘only’ 1,300 horsepower – managed 233 mph.

Stella Li, executive vice president of BYD, said: “This is an incredibly proud moment for everyone in the research and development division. Yangwang is a brand that does not recognise the impossible, and only through this commitment to what’s coming next can you end up with a vehicle like the U9X…It’s terrific that the fastest production car in the world is now electric.”

Just as Bugatti did with its specially modified Chiron Supersport 300+, BYD says it will produce “no more than” 30 examples of the Yangwang U9 Xtreme. The standard U9 is only available in China for now, so it isn’t clear if the Xtreme variant will be sold elsewhere. That said, BYD recently confirmed it will bring its Yangwang brand first to Europe in 2026, then to the UK in 2027. Before that, its Denza brand will arrive here to take on Audi, Porsche and BMW.

Launched in 2023, Yangwang currently sells the U9 electric supercar and the U8 – a huge, Land Rover Defender-esque SUV powered by electric motors and an engine that is used as a generator instead of to drive the wheels directly. The two cars are priced from around £200,000 and £120,000 respectively, but are only available in China, at least for now.