This Chinese man breaks Nürburgring record and dives under seven minutes

October 22, 2025

Nürburgring

The best PR a sports car can get? Setting a lap record at the Nürburgring. That gets you in all the media at once – worldwide. By now they have also understood this well in China. One Chinese manufacturer after another sends its cars to Germany, hoping to be a few tenths faster than the previous one.

3,000 hp

They are all electric powerhouses, because traditional gasoline-powered sports cars are rare in China. And by “powerhouses,” we mean really powerhouses: 1,000 horsepower is hardly worth mentioning. Whereas Tesla amazed the world not so long ago with the Model S Plaid with over 1,000 hp, they are now laughing about it in China. The Yangwang U9 Xtreme takes it up another notch: 3,000 hp!

Chinese missile in Green Hell

The bizarrely powerful Yangwang U9 Xtreme has now made history. The U9 Xtreme is the first all-electric production sports car to complete the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife in less than seven minutes. The official lap time: 6 minutes and 59.157 seconds. With that, the Chinese powerhouse knocks the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra – also Chinese – off the throne.

10,000 laps

Behind the wheel was German driver Moritz Kranz, who already has nearly 10,000 laps of experience on the Nordschleife. Yet this drive was different from all the others: this time he was driving a 3,000-hp electric hypercar with four electric motors, each good for 30,000 rpm.

1,200 volts

The U9 Xtreme uses a 1,200-volt platform and a body control system that keeps the car perfectly flat in fast turns. An extra strong cooling system prevents the batteries from overheating, while carbon-ceramic brakes and Giti semi-slick tires ensure the car can brake hard and not lose grip.

A bargain?

The U9 Xtreme is not a concept car, but a real production model – although only 30 of them will be built, all by hand. The price is around 250,000 euros, which seems almost a bargain for a car with 3,000 horsepower and a top speed of almost 500 km/h.

500 km/h

You read that last one correctly, too: almost 500 km/h. Just a month ago, in fact, the same U9 Xtreme already reached a top speed of 496 km/h, officially becoming the fastest production car in the world. Now it proves that it is not only absurdly fast in a straight line, but can also handle cornering like a real sports car.

Perspective

Still, we have to put it in perspective: the overall Nürburgring record remains firmly in the hands of the Mercedes-AMG One, with a time of 6:30.70 – some 30 seconds faster. So gasoline is still king at the ring. But one thing is clear: the Chinese attack on European sports car pride is in full swing.