Move over, Lucid Air Sapphire and Tesla Model S Plaid. Hell, move over Bugatti Chiron. There’s a new blindingly fast car on the block: the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra. Yes, the phone manufacturer behind what's often called "China's Apple Car" is bringing extreme performance to this high-tech EV sedan, and it may just rival any hypercar out there.
The SU7 Ultra was announced at the company's annual gathering today. Every year, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun gives a speech about the state of Xiaomi and its future plans. No doubt, this was probably the most important annual since the official launch of its first vehicle, the sporty EV SU7 sedan. The SU7 has been a rousing success for the brand, with its first-year allotment of 100,000 units completely sold out.
Get Fully Charged
Xiaomi SU7 Sells Out Quick
When the SU7 was first made for sale in China, it amassed 80,000 reservations within its first week.
But this ain’t just about the success and rave reviews of Xiaomi’s first car. During this year’s annual speech, Jun himself explained how he got the idea of how to create the SU7 and SU7 Ultra. It came from Jun revisiting movies and TV shows he watched when he was younger, like Senna, Top Gear or the Fast and Furious films.
That led to Jun inspired to get some on-track skills and get a racing license; all things that informed Jun’s ideas for the standard SU7.
Before Jun closed out the three-hour-long presentation, he ended it with a “one more thing” surprise drop, and a teased rear view of an SU7 with a large wing. “Our goal is to become one of the top five car manufacturers in the world…and we need courage to compete head to head in the world’s top car companies,” Jun said, alluding to the raison d'etre of the SU7 Ultra.
He then introduced the Nürburgring Nordschleife to the audience, explaining that half of the top 30 fastest cars around the track are from “Competitor A”: a nameless way to talk about the Volkswagen Group and its brands like Porsche.
"We need to polish our skills," Jun said. "Within a decade, we want to become the fastest four-door EV around the Nürburgring Nordschleife."
The SU7 Ultra produces 1,548 horsepower from a tri-motor setup using Xiaomi’s new self-developed electric motors. In the rear, sit two of its most powerful electric motors cheekily branded “V8s”, each producing a maximum of 548 horsepower. A less powerful “V6” electric motor powers the front wheels. (Neither actually has such an engine, of course, or any engine at all.)
There should be no power delivery bottlenecks since Xiaomi has fitted the SU7 Ultra with a high-performance racing-oriented battery that can supply up to 1,330 kW worth of energy.
Thus, the Xiaomi SU7 is predictably very quick. The 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) run happens in an alleged 1.97 seconds, 0-200 (0-124 mph) in 5.96 seconds, and 0-300 (0-186 mph) in 15.07 seconds. It will rocket to a top speed of more than 350 km/h (217 mph).
By comparison, that's a full 314 horsepower more than the 1,234 output of the Lucid Air Sapphire. Both cars have similar 0-60 times, but the Xiaomi's 217 mph top speed bests the 207 of the Air Sapphire.
Xiaomi hasn’t released all the details about the SU7 Ultra, but we do know that the wide body kit, front spoiler, outlandish brake ducting, rear spoiler and rear splitter aren’t just for show. Nearly every panel on the SU7 Ultra’s body is made up of carbon fiber save for the trunk lid dropping the weight down to 4,188 pounds (1,900 kilograms.)
Currently, the car is still in the prototype phase. It’s not clear if Xiaomi has plans for series production, but this will be the vehicle that Xiaomi will attempt to set its Nürburgring Nordschleife record. Jun says the brand is making a pilgrimage to Germany in October. The record for the fastest four-door is held by the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, at 7:07.55. The fastest EV is the Volkswagen ID.R race car, at 6:05.336.
It’s not clear if Xiaomi will beat them; Jun is open about this. “All car companies want to challenge Nürburgring," he said. "All want to challenge the competitors. Maybe we want to succeed, but it is more likely that we will fail, but we will keep fighting until the last moment until we finally succeed."
Contact the author: kevin.williams@insideevs.com
