If one thing’s certain about the future of EVs, it’s that they’ll continue to get even faster. A new electric Nürburgring king has been crowned, and it’s not some ultra-limited hypercar with a price tag three or four times your mortgage. It’s the production-spec Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, a Chinese electric sedan with four doors, rear seats, and a usable trunk. Xiaomi has tested a bonkers trackday special prototype of the SU7 at the Green Hell before, we’re looking at the new top-spec roadgoing variant Chinese consumers can actually buy. It’s a full-on production car, so let’s dig in to how it beat a seven-figure machine to claim the Nürburgring EV lap record.
Well, the Nordschleife is a power track, so having 1,527 combined horsepower from three electric motors certainly helps. Each rear motor kicks out 570 horsepower and goes to 27,200 RPM, while the single front motor cranks out a more subtle 387 horsepower. The result? A claimed zero-to-62 mph time of 1.98 seconds without the one foot of rollout most magazines use and a top speed of 207 mph. Seriously rapid stuff.
Unsurprisingly, motors that capable call for a big-league battery pack, and the 93.7 kWh pack in the SU7 Ultra features a 16C discharge rate, meaning it can dump 1330 kW when it’s happiest. Xiaomi claims it derates to a still impressive 800 kW at 20 percent state of charge, and an 800-volt architecture combined with a 5.2C charging rate should help the SU7 Ultra recharge in a blink when its 391-mile CLTC range has been depleted. At the same time, a high-performance cooling system aims to keep the high-voltage system within its happy window for two laps of the Nordschleife, the same benchmark used by the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.
Big power requires big brakes, an area in which past Xiaomi models have struggled. High-performance braking has been an issue with the SU7 Max, with that trim serving up 670 horsepower while featuring four-piston front calipers with relatively small, street-focused non-asbestos organic brake pads. Several drivers have reported severe braking performance fall-off on track, with some SU7 Max examples ending up not-quite-SU7-shaped anymore. In the aim of avoiding similar troubles with the Ultra trim, Xiaomi has fitted it with six-piston front calipers from Akebono, along with 16.9-inch front and 16.1-inch rear carbon ceramic discs to achieve a claimed 62-to-0 mph braking distance of just 101 feet. It’s no secret that the Nordschleife is particularly demanding on brakes, so this was an absolutely vital upgrade.
Of course, just like how pretty much all manufacturers set Nürburgring lap times in cars with optional performance packages, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra used for the record attempt was equipped with what the brand calls its Racing Package, which comes full of goodies that should make a serious difference. We’re talking a list including Endless brake pads like the ones favored by trackday junkies across the globe, Bilstein Evo R coilovers, Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS road-legal semi-slick tires, forged wheels, and a carbon fiber roof.
Oh, and we can’t forget to mention the aerodynamic tweaks applied to the SU7 Ultra. The fixed rear wing is the most obvious measure, but it teams up with an active rear diffuser and an oversized front splitter with air curtains to generate 628 pounds of downforce at top speed.
The result is a Nürburgring Nordschleife lap time of 7:04.957 with astonishing video and official timing to prove it. That’s not just a production sedan record, it’s nearly three seconds quicker than the dual-motor Porsche Taycan Turbo GT and at a fraction of the cost. In China, this record-setting sedan stickers for the equivalent of $73,740, or about the cost of a well-specced Mustang Dark Horse over here. More importantly, Xiaomi actually set a new production EV lap record with that time, undercutting the multi-million dollar Rimac Nevera hypercar’s time by more than three-tenths of a second.
Even though battery electric vehicles have a history of limitations around the Nordschleife, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is still quicker than a McLaren 720S, a C8 Corvette Z06, a Mercedes-AMG GTR, and the old 991.2 Porsche 911 GT3. It can go toe-to-toe with some of the past five years’ heavy-hitters, and that’s a serious achievement. While other automakers are surely headed to their engineering labs to topple Xiaomi’s new record, let’s just take a second to appreciate the state of the art. It’s hard to believe that in 15 years, electric cars have gone from the Mitsubishi i-MIEV to this, and it feels like only a matter of time before we get the first sub-seven-minute EV Nürburgring lap time. What an era to be alive in, yeah?
Top graphic image: Xiaomi
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Every time I see it I think it’s an frs. Plus they ripped off Mclearan’s headlights and I can’t respect automakers who do that sort of thing. Took years for hyundai and Kia to get off my list lol.
These things are becoming the Mustangs of China; new drivers end up in Xiaomi SU7s thanks to subsidies and record-low EV prices, and having never experienced high-power RWD, stomp on the gas mid-corner and end up fishtailing into pillars, people, ebikes and guardrails.
If I see a SU7 on the road I tend to put a lane and a few cars between me and the Xiaomi 🙁 Better be safe than sorry
But can Richard Hammond lose control of one and ball it up?
Seriously, this is impressive. I tried to teach my kid to learn to speak Chinese instead of Portuguese.
But can you open the doors after an accident?
5.2c is a recharge time of about 12 minutes btw
I read that banner as Burgerking
I’m well aware that creating high-performance vehicles is a necessary step in creating good but ordinary vehicles. Nobody needs a car that performs like this. Very few people will ever drive their cars on a racing track. I’m getting kind of bored of this manhood measuring contest.
I especially dislike that it’s jsut been an excuse to add hp. I want to see what a lightweight, high downforce 500hp car can do!
Oh hi Porsche!
I’m just disappointed that dodge isn’t getting involved in the EV horsepower wars.
Came to make a dumb joke about the quick lap being due to the car’s inability to slow down, saw that they upgraded the brakes, decided to make the joke anyway.
Fight me.
Brakes are probably the final frontier (and tires), these motors are putting out so much power I don’t know how much more the human body can take. Are we even going to be interested if they’re remotely piloted one day?
Or are the gas-powered supercars going to demand these EVs start doing 3 laps? Or 5? Or whatever amount drains their batteries enough that they can’t compete 🙂
There has to be a tipping point in the “can we/should we” equation at some point, right? Zero to half-buried in a brick wall shouldn’t happen in 1.5 seconds.
the human body can take way more than what these production cars can dish out. Formula 1 pulls way more Gs in turning and braking for lap after lap. Top Fuel dragsters pull even more Gs but only for a few moments. At that point, yes tires and brakes are the final frontier and its why they need parachutes to stop. Also on that point, yes slowing a Top Fuel Dragster down from 330+MPH that quickly is at the limit of the human body, as they have to adjust the chute openings and sizes to not detach retinas (its a legit concern).
If you want to know more about what a human can withstand acceleration/deceleration wise, a good place to start is reading about John Paul Stapp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp. He went for multiple rides on a rocket sled and is credited with experiencing the “highest known acceleration voluntarily encountered by a human” at 46.2g.
I’m not convinced this timeline is correct, this is the brand whose knockoff smartwatches and fitness trackers were the butt of jokes just a couple years ago.
The people running the Matrix need to do a little focus group testing, this doesn’t seem right. Someone must have wanted to clock out early.
AKA a 6 figure car subsidized by the government.
The Rimac is a 7 figure car, so that’s still pretty goddamn impressive.
Meanwhile in the land of the free market….
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/which-u-s-companies-receive-the-most-government-subsidies/
That’s amazing. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised since battery tech is advancing quickly and China is at the forefront of that, but it recalls an earlier era of quick advancements of fuel and engine tech.
There’s a video that went viral not that long ago of one of these things absolutely disintegrating when it hit a wall while being tracked. The impact caused the drivers’s seat to break in half and sent the driver flying inside the car. I thought I’d just watched someone die but fortunately he only sustained minor injuries.
Suffice to say this car is a hard, hard pass from me.
I hope they learned from that debacle. They’ve already learned with the brakes.
Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi
Car goes really fast, now show me
Flame-free motors, big-ass rotors
You rule, you’re seizing the day.
Bye, Mate; have it our way.
Nürburger King.
Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi
I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my rec(ords)
Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi
Please don’t take him just because your can(ards)
“Xiaomi, Xiaomi, Xiaomi how you run that track
The one that makes me scream,” she said
The one that makes me laugh,” she said
Its a really good looking car too- without a very thorough knowledge of all cars chinese, this is way -by far- the best looking chinese car i’ve seen.
I mean, it just looks like a Tesla model 3 clone
Except not at all? It’s literally a Taycan clone? I mean, if you’re going to accuse copying at least get the source material right.