BYD’s Yangwang U9 Xtreme Officially Claims the Nordschleife Crown

It’s no surprise drivers call the Nordschleife the Green Hell, with its 20.8 km of dense forest, blind crests and off-camber turns that will punish even the smallest mistake. Few cars survive and even fewer break records, but BYD has just done something truly incredible with the Yangwang U9 Xtreme. Moritz Kranz, a German driver with nearly 10,000 laps under his belt, took the wheel and drove it to a 6 minutes 59.157 second lap, the first production EV to do so.

Yangwang engineers actually started work in mid-2024, putting the car through its paces lap after lap to gather as much data as possible on grip, heat management and the stresses it puts on the suspension and aerodynamics. Kranz started the record setting run at the T13 timing loop, which is the full Nordschleife. From there, the U9 Xtreme took off like a rocket, four electric motors delivering 3,000 horsepower (2,959 to be exact) with a 1,200-volt system that kept everything running smooth under pressure.


You need control when the track drops from 595 meters to 174 and the U9 Xtreme delivers through its DiSus-X technology. This clever setup keeps the body level and stable in real-time with hydraulic actuators, keeps the chassis flat as it hits the Carousel and Flugplatz jumps. Kranz said this allowed him to carry speed into the turns without the usual EV squat or dive. Braking was sorted with a state-of-the-art titanium-alloy carbon-ceramic setup that doesn’t fade even after multiple hard stops. The GitiSport e.GTR2 Pro semi-slick tires, calibrated to the car’s 1,217 ps-per-ton power-to-weight ratio, gripped the asphalt tight in corners like Brünnchen where a slip could have cost him seconds. Cooling was also key, with an updated motor loop and an 80-kWh blade battery that meant no thermal throttling during the whole lap even as the temperatures started to rise.


From Hatzenbach to Adenauer-Forst, the throttle was smooth as silk, Kranz smoothly flowing through the esses and picking up fractions on the SU7 Ultra because it was hotter and straighter. Halfway through the Fuchsröhre straight, the U9 Xtreme showed off its top-end stability by churning out downforce without drag. The final push through Galgenkopf and Dennenruth needed a recovery, and here the body’s attitude control really shone, setting the car up quickly for the dash to the finish line. The official timers from the Nürburgring and TÜV Rheinland confirmed the whole run at 6:59.157.

As a seasoned endurance racing veteran, Kranz gets the Nordschleife to say the least. For the U9 Xtreme, he decided to take it easy, not forcing the pace, letting the electronics sort the torque vectoring while he focused on reading the road ahead. Looking back, the data logs revealed the sort of speeds you’d expect: 300kph on the long straights and a 1.5g force in the high-speed turns, silky smooth – no smoke coming off the tires, no wheelspin – just steady as you go. The Yangwang team from the pits were closely watching all the action, making software tweaks with each run based on what the telemetry was telling them.

The U9 Xtreme builds on the everyday version of the car, first showing its face in 2023 with some serious grunt – 1,290 horsepower and a 0-100kph time of a blistering 2.36 seconds. However, when you turn it up to Xtreme : the motors are spinning at 30,000 revs per minute each and the chassis has all been beefed up to give it the strength it needs for track use. Not many of these babies will be getting made – all just 30 of them out there in the world – and they come with a price tag of around 1.8 million yuan (roughly $253,000) to go with a 6 year warranty.