BYD pursues 500 km/h record with Yangwang U9 Xtreme as Tang SUV footage raises safety concerns

Chinese automaker BYD announced that its ultra‑high‑performance electric supercar, the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, will make a second speed‑record attempt in November at the ATP test circuit in Papenburg, Germany. The car previously set a 496.22 km/h (308.5 mph) record in September. Engineers plan to exploit unused margin in the first run, aiming to exceed 500 km/h. The U9 Xtreme is powered by BYD’s e4 platform with four independent electric motors delivering a total of 2,220 kW (about 2,977 hp) and features revised aerodynamics, a Blade battery with dual‑circuit cooling, and torque‑vectoring that adjusts up to 100 times per second.

Separately, a video recorded in Shenyang, China, shows a BYD Tang electric SUV wading through flood‑water while a large rear‑underbody component is visibly being dragged. BYD says the incident was caused by a severe impact with an unseen underwater object, not by a manufacturing defect or water ingress. The company stresses that the vehicle’s front motor allowed it to keep moving despite damage to the rear powertrain.