New Xiaomi YU7 GT shatters SUV 'ring record
Another 1,000hp Chinese EV does its thing, knocking the Audi RS Q8 off its perch (well, sort of)
While Xiaomi is currently making a very modest dent in the minds of the British public (save perhaps for anyone who has bought a mobile phone from the Chinese electronic giant), it is having a significant impact on the official Nurburgring leaderboard. You might recall that last year an SU7 Ultra, suitably Track Packaged, dipped under the record previously held by the Taycan Turbo GT - a circumstance so maddening to Porsche that it responded with an even quicker Manthey kitted version just last month.
Well, now Xiaomi is at it again, this time with its SUV-shaped YU7. The circumstances are similar, too, insofar as the GT model used to set the lap record - and newly launched on the Chinese mainland - also featured a ‘Track Professional Package’, which PH’s understands to mean different wheels and tyres, the latter being semi-slicks. The seats are different, too, and some of the interior trim has been removed to ‘balance the added weight of the roll cage’ stipulated by the Nurburgring’s officials.
Such shenanigans are familiar to anyone who keeps an eye on Nordschleife lap times, and the powers that be seem to have conceded that the 1,003hp GT passes muster as a production model. However, Xiaomi’s contention that it now owns the overall SUV record does come with an asterisk - 7mins 22sec is indeed the quickest time, beating out the Audi RS Q8 performance by nearly 15 seconds, but its status as an EV means it stands alone in a SUV, off-road vehicles, vans and pick-ups category preserved purely for battery-powered models. Literally, alone.
Given its obsession with Nurburgring times in general, and following the launch of the electric Cayenne, you’d imagine Porsche might see an opportunity to one-up its Chinese rival in due course, but for now we’ll extend a congratulatory salute to Xiaomi, and the YU7’s driver, Vincent Radermecker (though some sources have suggested that Ren Zhoucan was behind the wheel). It’s no mean feat to marginally outgun (just for reference) the likes of the Jaguar XE Project 8 or the BMW M2 CS.
Of course, it hasn’t happened by accident. Xiaomi reports that the YU7 GT is its first production vehicle to benefit from the input of its European R&D centre - a building that houses more than one employee pinched from ‘leading performance brands’. Plus, we’re talking about a car capable of 0-62mph in 2.92 seconds and a top speed of 186mph, one that benefits not just from a eLSD on the back axle and adaptively damped, dual chamber air springs, but also an Akebono carbon-ceramic braking system.
In other words, the GT has apparently been developed from the ground up with a spare-no-expense attitude, and (in case you were wondering) its 101.7kWh battery is said to offer a CLTC-rated range of 438 miles. Significantly more, in other words, than the 1,156hp Cayenne Turbo Electric. Not that you can buy one here if you wanted to. Or not yet anyway. But Xiaomi is not setting these records merely for fun: expect to hear more about its mooted European launch next year.
Ferrari an Porsche make amazing cars engine that sound amazing and have a history goung back decades but a Taycan or the new Ferrari EV don't have that same draw. The Chinese EVs feel like Sony entering the games console market with established players Sega and Nintendo being caught napping
And yet somehow it feels completely dead inside.
No theatre. No danger. No heartbeat.
Just a giant software update on wheels, optimised by committee to win internet arguments.
(and yet, here I am commenting on the thing... so in the attention economy it wins I guess!)
I don’t understand why you feel they have to be mutually exclusive.
I don t understand why you feel they have to be mutually exclusive.
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