Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi just revealed an electric car that is claimed to have more power than a Bugatti Chiron.
Just a few years ago, such a statement would have been branded as pure nonsense. The work of an hallucinating AI chatbot that’s spent too much time feeding on packs of Top Trumps cards. But this decade has already seen the automotive landscape is turned on its head, so a carbon-bodied Chinese electric saloon with a claimed 1,545 horsepower is worthy of your attention.
It’s called the SU7 Ultra and, while a concept for now, it’s based on the entirely real Xiaomi SU7, a C-segment electric saloon that arrived earlier in the year. But where the regular SU7 is designed to lure buyers away from cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and lesser variants of Porsche Taycan, the pumped-up SU7 Ultra is something else entirely.
(Image credit: Xiaomi)
It might still look like a four-door saloon, but the huge, touring car-style body kit – complete with massive front splitter, spoiler and rear diffuser – tells a different story. Xiaomi says the car is fitted with a pair of its own confusingly-named V8s motors at the rear, each producing 570 hp and 468 lb ft of torque, plus a single V6s motor at the front. Total output is a claimed 1545 hp, which is about 400 more than the flagship Porsche Taycan Turbo GT – a car we recently described from the passenger seat as “gut-wrenching”.
Xiaomi claims the SU7 Ultra can accelerate to 62 mph in just 1.97 seconds, and to 186 mph (or 300 km/h) in a frankly absurd 15 seconds. The former puts it ahead of the 2.2-second Porsche, while the latter is just three seconds short of a Bugatti Chiron. The 0-60 mph time is also a fraction quicker than that of the Tesla Model S Plaid, which completes the sprint in a claimed 1.99 seconds.
The Chinese company says it wants to smash Nurburgring lap records with its super saloon. This includes the production EV lap record, which currently stands at 7min 5.55 and is held by the Taycan Turbo GT, and also the outright EV record, which stands at 6min 5.34 and is held by the track-only Volkswagen ID R. It’s the non-street-legal concept you see here that will go after the outright EV record, while a more toned-down, road-legal version of the SU7 Ultra will take on the Porsche.
(Image credit: Xiaomi)
Xiaomi says the concept car has an all-carbon body and claims a maximum downforce of 2,145 kg. Given that’s more than the car actually weighs – and is more than what aero kings like the Aston Martin Valkyrie and even Adrian Newey’s new RB 17 hypercar car achieve – we’ll take that claim with a pinch of salt for now. The top speed is said to be over 217 mph and weight is a claimed 1,900 kg, or around 330 kg lighter than the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT.
The standard SU7 launched earlier in 2027 and is said to have attracted over 50,000 deposits within 30 minutes of going on sale. There’s no word yet on whether the Ultra version will go into production, but if even the track-going concept lives up to Xiaomi’s claims it’ll be a mighty impressive EV.
