The world’s fastest production car has broken a major speed record, potentially marking the end of an era for the automotive industry. Earlier this month, the Yangwang U9 Xtreme, a subsidiary of Chinese automotive giant BYD, achieved 312.65mph in Abu Dhabi with Marc Basseng at the wheel.
The U9 Xtreme is the fastest version of a car that, in standard trim, is due to go on sale for around £200,000 in 2027. How much this variant of the car will cost is not yet known, but it could be around £2,000,000. The U9 Extreme is the first car to ever reach 312.65mph (503.17kph). To put this into perspective, it’s just just 70.985mph (110.646kph) off Mach 0.5 – half the speed of sound.
This doesn’t mean we’re going to have a road car break the sound barrier in the future, but some commentators have suggested the U9 Xtreme’s record may put other manufacturers off going faster.
The reason for that is not necessarily safety, but the laws of physics. The next milestone, 350mph, would put forces on the car so great that it would almost be impractical to make it road legal.
This is a view reflected by Top Gear’s Ollie Kew, who said that whilst the U9 Xtreme wasn’t the first to break the 300mph barrier – Bugatti took that title with their Chiron Super Sport 300 – it has probably hit the final road-legal car speed target.
Ollie explained: “The Chinese EV wasn’t the first road car to pass the magic 300mph…but the Yangwang will forever be enshrined in the record books as the first street legal car to smash the 500kmh barrier.
“That makes it vanishingly unlikely that anyone else will give the top speed game a go in the future. We already know this stuff, while cool, is deeply irrelevant.
“In fact it’s counter-productive to making a car that’s actually fun to drive at sane speeds. But it’s even less worth the effort when the big, famous speed you hit isn’t a big round number. Somehow, it won’t be an event if someone now manages 314mph.”
However, if road car manufacturers stop chasing speed records, it won’t be because of the U9 Xtreme, it’s because they’ve already sort of stopped anyway.
Speed records are jolly good, but people now want engagement more than they want high speed; it’s why Ferrari have created a new type of semi-automatic gearbox that allows you change gears like it’s a manual, with three pedals and all.
In an age where cars do so much for us, people want to take back control of the experience, and drive their expensive cars rather than feel they are being driven by them.
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