Slinky

Bugatti just lost its all-time speed record. To the Chinese EV in this video. 308 mph at Papenburg, on a battery. The Chiron Super Sport had held the record for six years. 1,600 hp, 8.0L W16, four turbochargers. Bugatti needed every horse of that to hit 304 mph. BYD's Yangwang U9 Xtreme did 308 with four electric motors and a battery pack. Marc Basseng, the driver, won the Nürburgring 24 Hours. He said the run was "technically not possible with a combustion engine." He's right. A combustion engine produces a power curve that peaks at a specific RPM and falls off either side. Past 9,000 RPM the valves float, the connecting rods stretch, the pistons can't reverse direction fast enough. The W16 is the absolute thermodynamic ceiling of 100 years of internal combustion. Every mph past 290 cost exponentially more engineering for diminishing returns. The U9 Xtreme uses four electric motors. Each produces 744 hp. Each spins to 30,000 RPM. No valves. No pistons. No connecting rods. Total system output is 2,978 hp, almost double Bugatti's W16. Power-to-weight is 1,217 hp per tonne. The motors were never the hard part. Mate Rimac said this years ago. The constraint was always the battery, because to deliver 2,978 hp into four wheels you have to discharge faster than any production EV ever has. BYD built the world's first 1,200-volt production car. Everyone else uses 800V. The Blade Battery runs lithium iron phosphate cells with a 30C discharge rate, ten times what a conventional EV battery handles. Heat generation falls 67% versus 800V at matching output. That last number is the whole game. Heat is what kills high-power EV runs. Other automakers derate within seconds at full power because the battery cooks itself. BYD's architecture lets the Xtreme hold maximum discharge long enough to actually approach the aerodynamic limit of the chassis. Bugatti spent 20 years engineering the W16 to its physical ceiling. BYD spent 18 months building the architecture that cleared it. They're making 30 of them. The crown for fastest production car on Earth has belonged to Bugatti, Koenigsegg, Hennessey, SSC. All combustion, all European or American. The crown is Chinese now, and it runs on a battery.