On 1 November 2026 the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, the limited-run electric supercar from BYD’s Yangwang brand, reached 503.17 km/h (312.65 mph) on a closed section of the E11 road in Abu Dhabi. The FIA recognised the speed, and Guinness World Records gave it two single-direction titles: highest speed by a production car, and by an electric production car. The FIA calls it the first production car to pass 500 km/h. Marc Basseng drove.
The figures below come from the FIA’s and BYD’s announcements of 6 November 2026. No independent timing data has been published.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Speed | 503.17 km/h (312.65 mph) |
| Date | 1 November 2026 |
| Place | Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed International Road (E11), Al Dhafra Region, Abu Dhabi |
| Direction | One direction (single run, not a two-way average) |
| Recognised by | FIA; two Guinness World Records titles |
| Driver | Marc Basseng |
| Previous best | 496.22 km/h, ATP Papenburg, Germany, September 2025 |
| Gain | 6.95 km/h |
| Production | 30 cars worldwide |
How the run was done
Local authorities closed about 10 km of the E11, and the longest straight was 7 km. The road was swept and checked for debris. On 31 October the team made two runs and reached 490 km/h at most. Overnight, engineers changed the battery and motor temperatures, the rear-wing angle, the rebound damping and the tyre pressures. On 1 November the car made two more runs, and the second set the record. It ran on semi-slick tyres developed with Giti Tire.
The 7 km straight matters because the earlier record track, ATP Papenburg in Germany, has straights of about 4 km. A longer straight gives the car more room to reach its maximum before it has to brake.
What “single-direction” means
The U9 Xtreme’s 503.17 km/h is the speed of one run in one direction. Many production-car top-speed records have instead used the average of two runs in opposite directions, so that a tailwind or a slight downhill on one run is cancelled by the other. Guinness names this record as a single-direction one, and neither announcement gives a two-way figure. That does not make the speed wrong; it means it answers a slightly different question from a two-way average, and comparisons with older records should say which kind each one is.
How the U9 got here
| Date | Car | Place | Speed (km/h) |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2024 | U9 | Wuhan Hannan Airport, China | 309 |
| October 2024 | U9 | ATP Papenburg, Germany | 391.94 |
| August 2025 | U9 Xtreme | ATP Papenburg, Germany | 472.41 |
| September 2025 | U9 Xtreme | ATP Papenburg, Germany | 496.22 |
| 1 November 2026 | U9 Xtreme | E11, Abu Dhabi | 503.17 |
Source: BYD. The U9 Xtreme also holds the production-EV lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, 6 minutes 59.157 seconds, according to the FIA.
The car
The U9 Xtreme has four electric motors, one per wheel, each rated at 555 kW (755 PS) and turning at up to 30,000 rpm. BYD gives the combined output as more than 3,000 PS (four times 555 kW is 2,220 kW). It runs on a 1,200-volt electrical system, up from 800 V in the regular U9, with currents up to 1,000 A. The battery is BYD’s Blade pack with LFP cells (see what LFP means). BYD quotes a 30C discharge rate and 1,800 kW of output at 20% charge. Active suspension (BYD calls it DiSus-X) and per-wheel torque vectoring keep it stable at speed.
BYD will build 30. It has not published a price, and the car is not sold in Europe, so it is not in our catalog.
How far ahead of EVs you can buy
Our catalog lists a maker’s top speed for 663 electric cars on sale (6 November 2026). The median is 180 km/h, and 49 of them reach 250 km/h or more. The fastest:
| Car on sale | Top speed (km/h, maker) |
|---|---|
| Lucid Air Sapphire | 330 |
| Maserati GranTurismo Folgore | 325 |
| Ferrari Luce | 310 |
| Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Weissach | 305 |
The U9 Xtreme’s record is 173 km/h above the Lucid Air Sapphire’s rated top speed. The announced new Tesla Roadster carries a claim of over 230 mph (about 370 km/h), which nobody has tested. Top speed rarely matters for an everyday EV: at motorway speeds, range falls well before the car runs out of speed (see how speed changes range). The full fastest electric cars ranking orders every EV on sale by 0–100 km/h. To rank them by range, price or charging, use the catalog or compare up to four.