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The story
BYD’s electric supercar “YANGWANG U9 Xtreme” set a one-direction top speed of 503.17 km/h on a highway in Abu Dhabi, UAE on November 1, 2026, breaking its own record of 496.22 km/h set in Germany in September 2025. On 5ch, alongside astonishment and praise for the sheer top speed, there was crossed concern about stability on public roads and the car’s history of crashing during testing, with many sarcastic remarks pointing out that the road used was “a boring dead-straight stretch with no curves.”
Electric Vehicle Finally Breaks the 500 km/h Barrier — BYD’s “U9 Xtreme” Sets World Record
Key points of this article
What happened: On November 1, 2026, BYD’s electric supercar “YANGWANG U9 Xtreme” reached 503.17 km/h in a one-direction run, setting a new world record.
Source: xenospectrum.com / Original article here
What people said
Asking too much, lol
Don't catch fire
Be able to stop
Don't get stolen
Don't break down on the road
it'd make more sense to cap the top speed at around 120 km/h so cars simply can't go that fast in the first place,
or automatically slow down the car being overtaken when it's being passed —
there are plenty of ways to handle this.
And the fact that the same automaker also makes EV kei cars is equally impressive.
It's now obvious that China has overtaken Japan in automotive technology too.
Japan has low production efficiency and lags in both technology and science, while China is the opposite — of course Japan got overtaken.
Seems close to the limit.
Amazing.
Sell it high and cash in.
Feels like you'd lose control, take out a bunch of other cars, and everyone involved would end up dead.
a public road with plenty of unpredictable factors like surface unevenness and desert-typical sand dust.
>Breaking the 500 km/h barrier proved to the world the vehicle's overwhelming stability and reliability.
That's apparently what they're saying.
Apparently it's said to be the most boring road in the world — dead straight for 240km without a single curve. That's about as few unpredictable factors as you can get, lol
No, this is a story about progress in a completely different area.
A normal supercar's handling quality changes once it passes 300 km/h, but this looked like it could've gone even faster and they deliberately held back.
The driver must've been shaking like crazy.
Can it even turn?
I'll grant it value as a speed trial, but I doubt it translates into actual sales.
Ferrari makes EVs too, but a Ferrari that doesn't roar isn't a Ferrari.
…
Checked the original article — turns out top-speed records are normally certified using the average of runs made in both directions, to cancel out things like wind direction.
How many km can it actually go?
That part is so scary it overshadows everything else in the article.
Most Japanese drivers drive like they're trying to crash, so I bet they're just dying to get behind the wheel of something like this.
Guess Japan doesn't do that kind of thing anymore.
Yangwang U9 Xtreme CRASHES at 450 km/h During Speed Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxdE0I-VaFc
I don't want to die, so I'll pass.
Background and Points of Debate
BYD’s previous record was 496.22 km/h, set at a test track in Germany in September 2025, which itself had broken the Bugatti Chiron’s 490.48 km/h. This time’s 503.17 km/h was set on a public road in the UAE, but as pointed out in the thread, top-speed records are normally certified using the average of runs made in both directions to cancel out factors like wind direction — the fact that this figure comes from a single “one-direction run” sets it apart from the usual certification standard. The source article also mentions a crash during domestic high-speed testing, and beyond the stability question at speeds above 500 km/h, practical concerns like actual charging time and achievable cruising range remain separate issues from the record’s headline glamour.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Science News+) thread “[Automobiles] Electric Vehicle Finally Breaks the 500 km/h Barrier — BYD’s “U9 Xtreme” Sets World Record.”
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