A huge milestone has been set in the motoring world. BYD luxury brand Yangwang took its U9 Xtreme to Abu Dhabi, UAE, and clocked an unbelievable 503.17 kmph on Sunday (Nov 1).
With this run, it officially became the world's very first production car to cross the 500 kmph mark. The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) confirmed the record, giving BYD two Guinness World Records for the fastest single-direction speed by a production car and an electric production car.
Record on a public highway
Behind the wheel was Marc Basseng, a seasoned German racing and endurance driver. The high-speed test was carried out on Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed International Road (E11) in the Al Dhafra region.
Authorities closed off a 10 km stretch of the public road, including a seven-kilometre straight, to ensure safe conditions for the test.
The team took two days to prepare. This run beat their earlier mark of 496.22 kmph (308.33 mph), which was set in Germany back in September 2025.
“Following two initial runs on 31 October, which reached a maximum speed of 490 km/h, engineers made further adjustments to the vehicle's aerodynamics, suspension settings and tyre pressures to improve stability and performance. Two additional runs were completed on 1 November, with the second achieving the final speed of 503.17 km/h,”FIA
Power and performance
The Yangwang U9 was first introduced in February 2024. It features a 12-cylinder engine along with four electric motors, each generating 240 kW to deliver a massive combined peak power of 960 kW.
Because of this setup, the car can sprint from zero to 100 kmph in just 2.36 seconds. It also comes equipped with an active suspension setup and specialised thermal-management systems to handle extreme driving.
