"What came next blew our minds": the Yangwang U9's 308mph run was our moment of the year

Where were you on 14 September 2025? One Chinese carmaker was playing in the Germans’ backyard – and about to deliver a mic drop that would send massive shockwaves around the automotive world.

Enter BYD sub-brand Yangwang with its U9 Xtreme rocketship. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, and after a 290mph ‘wobble’ on his first attempt, German race driver Marc Basseng popped a couple of brave pills and took to the high speed test oval at ATP Papenburg, determined to stick one to Christian von Koenigsegg, Mate Rimac, John Hennessey and the rest of the 300mph club.

What came next blew our minds. Marc held his nerve, and his breakfast, to hit 308.4mph, dethroning the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ (304.8mph) after six long years to become the fastest road legal car – electric or otherwise – on the planet, cementing its place in the history books forever.

The U9 Extreme makes everything with a combustion engine look a bit... weak. It produces 2,978bhp from four electric motors (each spinning to 30,000rpm) – that’s over double the 1,288bhp ‘standard’ U9 and 1,217bhp per tonne. It’s also the first production car to run on a 1,200V architecture, essential to deliver all that power to the motors, and can support up to 1,000A current – the same as some electric trains.

But beating Bugatti at its own game was seemingly just the beginning for Yangwang. Already it’s broken the lap record for the fastest production electric sports car around the Nürburgring with a time of 6mins 59.16secs. Breaking 500kph (311mph) is the next target. World, you have been warned.