Record broken: The Yangwang U9 XTREME exceeds 500 km/h top speed

Supercars are vehicles capable of surprising us with their abilities. And when it comes to speed, the Yangwang U9 XTREME has not fallen behind. Yangwang is the luxury brand of BYD and has presented a supercar that is ready to offer very special characteristics and has achieved a speed of 503.17 km/h.

This figure surpasses the previous record set by the Yangwang U9 XTREME, which stood at 496.22 km/h. Now, having beaten this record, it has also achieved two Guinness World Records. It is the production car with the highest speed in a single direction and the production electric car that has reached top speed in a single direction.

This milestone was achieved on the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed International Highway (E11), which runs through the Al Dhafra region in Abu Dhabi. Behind the wheel was Marc Basseng, a racing and endurance driver who also set the previous record, that time at ATP Papenburg, in September 2025. The facilities infrastructure and the collaboration of local authorities made these records possible.

The achievement came after the brand’s engineers worked on the data recorded during the previous test and managed to adjust the vehicle so that it surpassed the earlier mark. It is important to note that this record was set on a public road, with conditions very different from those of a test track, which makes it even more remarkable.

The Yangwang U9 EXTREME was first shown in January 2024, reaching 309 km/h at Wuhan Hannan Airport in China, and in October of that same year it reached 391.94 km/h at the ATP Papenburg test centre in Germany. Shortly afterwards it achieved its first result close to 500 km/h and now, has surpassed those 500 km/h that posed a tough challenge for the brand.

A very well-prepared test

To carry out the test, a 10-kilometre section of this motorway was closed, featuring a seven-kilometre straight where the car could accelerate efficiently and reach this record speed. The first two runs were used to adjust the vehicle to the characteristics of the road and to achieve the greatest efficiency in the test.

On 1 November the last two runs were completed, where the 503.17 km/h that had been sought were finally obtained.

Features of the supercar

To reach this speed, work was done to increase the power of the electric motors of the Yangwang U9 XTREME. The engineers managed to raise the initial output to 1,287 CV, making the rotational speed of each wheel reach 30,000 rpm, another of the innovations offered by this model. The power of each of the motors fitted to the car reaches 555 kW, equivalent to 755 CV.

The maximum combined power of the four motors exceeds 3,000 CV, so technology capable of managing this output was necessary. By combining torque management and combined power, a record that was already spectacular has been surpassed.