Opinion: the Yangwang U9’s 293mph v-max is MADDER than you think

If you’ve just reseated your backside on your chair having promptly fallen off after a Chinese hypercar did a verified 293 miles per hour, can I just invite you to end up on the floor in disbelief all over again?

Yesterday the internet got lathered up over the footage of the staggeringly generic-looking Yangwang strolling up to 472kph (293mph) making it the fastest road-legal EV in the world, and among the top three fastest road cars, full stop.

What alarmed me wasn’t the speed, but the location.

As you know, the world’s not overrun with locations to safely run a car up towards 300 miles per hour. Ehra-Lessien is the obvious German test track, but Volkswagen, (which owns it) isn’t about to let a Chinese upstart have a crack on their patch, are they?

Even Bugatti, which isn’t quite in the VW circle of trust any more since its Rimac merger, is barred. That’s why when it wanted to set an open-roof v-max record with the Mistral last November, it was forced to use a place called ATP Papenburg in north-west Germany.

Alternatives? Nardo, Italy’s high-speed bowl, is a constant corner and too bumpy for these nutty speeds. Millbrook in the UK? Forget it. You might as well use the Monaco GP circuit. And road cars can’t put their power down on the Bonneville salt flats. 

So, Papenburg’s high-speed test oval has become numero-uno-speed-record-crucible. The Bugatti Mistral did 282mph there in light drizzle. 

I was allowed to tag along for that record attempt, and drive the same €11m car later the same day (after a tyre change). I topped out at a mere 245mph, when the Mistral slammed into a speed limiter which had been deactivated for Andy Wallace’s Guinness-verified run.

First shock here: Papenburg is tiny. All the high speed tracks are not equal. Sure, it’s five lanes wide and the 45-degree banking allows for a (recommended) cornering speed of 155mph. The Bugatti and the Yangwang came off that banking doing close to 190mph… 

But Papenburg’s straights are titchy compared to the legendary Ehra-Lessien run which disappears around the curvature of the Earth. There, the agreed ‘straight’ is over 5 miles long. At best, Papenburg gives you 2.7 miles before you need to brake bloody hard for its sharp, unforgiving bends. 

And yet an electric hypercar sauntered up to 293mph – 12mph faster than a 1,600hp Bugatti – and at those sort of speeds every extra 1mph is a Herculean achievement. Even if it did look terrifyingly lively when the driver lifted off.

Watch the footage above and you’ll see the Chinese car is apparently not done accelerating when it runs out of room. It blitzed that track and had more to give. And this – as far as we know – was Yangwang’s first attempt. Meanwhile, fellow Chinese brand Xiaomi has set eighty-six Nürburgring records. 

So frightening fact number two: we can deduce that Yangwang will be back. 300mph next. Then the full-fat Chiron Super Sport’s 304.77mph record. Then who knows where? 311mph (500kph)? 320mph? Poor old John Hennessey must be sobbing into his elephant heart-sized turbos.

Some people were amazed by yesterday’s announcement. Others were nonplussed, because it’s an EV. A brand with no cachet. Me? I was staggered it went so fast in so little distance. Having been there, and felt one of the world’s quickest cars giving its all along that straight, it’s stupefying to think of this U9 silently cruising by barely breaking a sweat. 

Once it has more space, it has every blue-blooded household name hypercar at its mercy. Gulp.