When it comes to setting lap times, no one really cares that your car was the fastest around Road America or Interlagos. For reasons both historical and random, Germany’s Nürburgring is the place. It’s so much the place that even Tesla – a company generally allergic to race tracks – went there with its Tesla Model S Plaid to prove it had the fastest four-door car in the world. No more. Now Chinese automaker Xiaomi just smoked Tesla’s record lap with its SU7 Ultra prototype.
And when I say smoked, I mean they took Tesla to Franklin’s BBQ in Austin and let it cook for about 45 minutes per pound until it got that dark, crusty bark. The Tesla Model S Plaid previously set the fastest four-door car on the track record at 7 minutes 25.23 seconds in 2023.
Porsche then set an even faster record earlier this year with its Taycan Turbo S, completing the circuit in 7 minutes and 7.55 seconds. What did the Su7 Ultra prototype do? A Bahn-storming 6 minutes and 46.87 seconds. You can see in the video below how it happened:
The SU7 Ultra was driven by Aston Martin factory driver David Pittard, who is known as something of a Nürburgring specialist after his many laps and accomplishments at the track, including an overall and class win at the big 24-hour race.
According to the company, the Xiaomi team tried to set a record all month but were constantly hampered by heavy rain whenever an attempt was started. It wasn’t until yesterday morning that the official lap was able to be run on a clear, dry track.
The non-Ultra SU7 is the product of a smartphone maker Xiaomi and is one of the most interesting cars in the world right now. It’s meant to compete with the Taycan and Model S, as it did here, with eye-popping stats and a solidly handsome design.
In China, the Su7 Max has a CATL-designed 101 kWh battery and produces a 0-62 mph time of 2.78 seconds, which puts it close to the Regular Model S and Taycan, though a little slower than the Turbo and Plaid. Obviously, this Ultra is meant to remedy this oversight.
More recently, the Su7 was in the news when it was revealed that Ford’s CEO Jim Farley had one imported to Detroit and likes it so much that he said he doesn’t “wanna give it up.”
BTW, courtesy of a tipster, I think this is the first photo that’s been posted of an Su7 in Detroit that is quite possibly Farley’s specific car:
Are there some big caveats here? Yes, there are some big caveats to this whole thing. The vehicle you see here is a “prototype” and the record the company was going for was not fastest production sedan, but fastest four-door anything.
The video clearly shows a caged vehicle with a stripped interior. I can’t quite tell what tires are on there, but since it’s not a production record they could be slicks (although, the “production tires” for production runs are also always worth questioning).
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun acknowledged this in a Weibo post, but left the door open for the production version to set that record as well:
As a newcomer in the automotive industry, Xiaomi dared to show its sword and conquer the Nürburgring Nordschleife for the first time, which proves Xiaomi’s great determination and courage to build cars! After the mass-produced car is launched, we will continue to conquer the Nürburgring Nordschleife!
Nürburgring record laps are a little like professional wrestling in that you either have to accept them all as real and valid or dismiss the entire experiment as highly contrived fakery. No two laps are often the same and every run is subject to so many minute variables that can contribute to success or failure.
No matter how much validity you give the exercise, it’s ultimately a driveshaft-measuring contest, and Xiaomi just unrolled its unit to the world right in Germany’s backyard. 
Ok, now can we just “crush” all the Teslas?
Begin with the Cybertrick
Porsche record from earlier this years is Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package, not the Turbo S. Which is an actual production vehicle on factory tires, not a prototype.
The front wheel arches remind me of the 1st Gen Honda Insight
Drag reduction, and yeah… my insight is basically a super car, nbd
I tried to watch but the brakes sounded like my mailman’s LLV and I couldn’t handle it….
I wish Sabine Schmitz were still around to do these tests. Would the results be different? (Not casting any aspersions at Mr. Pittard, of course) It would be interesting to hear her commentary.
What an incredibly misleading headline.
The issue with Chinese vehicles is the same as with Chinese products in general. Most (but not all, to be clear) will work fine for a couple of years, and then some cheap glue or horrible weld will give way and the whole thing starts to break apart. I’m not saying this issue only happens with Chinese products, but it is very usual with them. There’s a reason why car parts from China are said to be made with “chineseium.” They’ll work…for now…and that’s why you get them on the cheap…and with a one – two year warranty only.
You realized you just described a tesla right? 🙂
Same thing, right? I’d never buy one of those either…for much the same reasons. Along with fit and finish, of course. And the stupid singular screen in the middle of the car to tell me speed. And the yoke. Not even to mention the Fearless Leader of said corporation.
Sad thing is, this is the standard for almost everything now and the younger generations don’t know anything else.
People love to say this. But crappy things have been made since things were made. The only OLD things still around are the ones that were well built. The crap is long gone and we like to pretend it never existed.
Bingo. In archaeology and paleontology it’s called “preservation bias”.
People love saying old buildings are better built than new ones.
Perhaps they enjoy asbestos, lead paint, no seismic resistance, low (or zero) wind resistance, questionable metallurgy, etc.
Some of us do appreciate climatically appropriate design though. Recently things have gotten better but we had a 50 year span where “just throw HVAC at it” was the answer, and people totally forgot how to build structures that could stay relatively comfortable on their own.
And as for seismic or wind, it really depends. The number of 200 year old buildings in seismic and windy areas significantly outperforms chance- although rather than technology it was often about site selection.
Homes were built better objectively. Down to the studs, where 16″ is very common and 24″ exists, vs 12″ and masonry in older homes. Even rusted old cars still run (poorly, but still). Once the software is obsolete, these won’t run at all. Period.
Even the worst old products last longer than most of the products today from the past. It isn’t bias, it’s fact. Will they last forever? No, but longer than 1-2 years of the current expectation. Heck, I have 15 year old laptops running, where new ones may break in 2-3 years.
Remember seeing that old TV in grandma’s house? it still works. Try that with a PLASMA. Or an LCD with burn-in.
Agreed. It’s hard to parse out the tendency of ‘in my day… up hill both ways, and we LIKED IT!’, but I really think it’s true. The flood of cheap crap starting in the early 2000’s really seems to have reset quality standards. Now I must go and replace the trunk latch on my Golf for the 5th time (plastic worm gears, WTF?). I used to curse cheap pot metal, now I’d be thankful for it.
I have a Samsung 40” from 12 years ago that still is remarkably just fine
Just use the Torch method and chainsaw repair.
It depends on what their quality standard is. True they build a lot of cheap junk, but that’s what American’s wanted to buy. Years ago we decided we wanted inexpensive nearly disposable products rather than more expensive, better-quality US built ones.
If they wanted to build a world class product with Toyota levels of quality, they could.
Chinese EVs are all the rage here where I live right now and for the most part their quality is good. The problem is that if you have any issue or, god forbid, a crash, these Chinese companies are not making parts for them, so it takes months and even years for the car to be functional again.
China’s approach to EVs is similar to manufacturing TVs or cell phones. Their goal is to sell the product, not to support it.
Lol. I would buy a Chinese vehicle over anything that Stellantis makes, it would probably last longer, and be cheaper to repair.
Oh for sure! I refused to buy ANY Stellantis/FCA/DC vehicle.
? Fiat 500 Abarth. Citroen DS. He’ll even the Chrysler hybrid minivan is worth a look. And DT would like to discuss Jeep if he can remove himself from his LA lifestyle Beemer
Hot damn, that’s cookin’
Shots fired, too. When it comes to ‘Ring laps, the car company whose head is more interested in trying to sell the public on remote-controlled robots, “self-driving” tech that isn’t and impractical robotaxis than actually making cars is kind of irrelevant. Elon’s gone “ooh, orange squirrel” and almost certainly peaced out of this battle. Porsche’s the real target here, along with maybe Mercedes. It’s their backyard and there’s a good chance they’ll build something even wilder to meet or surpass this record, production or not.
So, c’mon, parsh. Do the thing. Answer with a faster, sillier car. I live for this driveshaft-measuring contest. It’s frickin’ fun and I love seeing the wild cars manufacturers whip out for it.
With US tariffs added the time is 13 minutes and 33 minutes.
Sub 7 minute times is insanity. Anyone else feel old right now, and remembering the early 00s where the Nissan Skyline was celebrated for being a production car that did the ring in under 8 minutes?
hush, now, my bones will turn to dust and I need them to make much slower laps around MSR-Houston this weekend
Yes yes, and then nissan proceeded to sell the public the same production car in which the fine print that you can never use the launch control and not even turn off the traction control 🙂
https://jalopnik.com/gt-r-owner-busts-tranny-using-launch-control-nissan-cl-5061221
I don’t think launch control was used in that ring time.
That looks like a race car. The Tesla was basically an option pack you can order. Apples to oranges.
More like apple to track-prepped Apple. Maybe Xiaomi wouldn’t have beaten Tesla’s record with a car prepped similarly to the Plaid Tesla used, but clearly the SU7 is capable of similar performance if that’s production-spec chassis/drivetrain/suspension.
It’s not production spec chassis and suspension. It has a roll cage for christ’s sake. It might have 4 doors but it only has one seat. It’s a race car. Did you watch the video?
The Tesla Model S Plaid Track Pack is tires and brakes. That’s it. I’m not trying to be a Tesla apologist, I’m just being pragmatic in the comparison. IDGAF if a race car is faster than a Tesla street car. In fact it BETTER be faster.
https://shop.tesla.com/product/model-s-plaid-track-package
“When it comes to setting lap times, no one really cares that your car was the fastest around Road America …”
Around my parts, we care a lot.
It is a power track, to be sure. There is nuance to it though, ask anyone who’s been there a lot. Grab me a brat and an ear of corn while you’re there.
I was just up there a few days ago, had a group of 8 cars in the kettles celebrating the end of the season. Great times.
Same here. As a an American and Midwesterner, I’ve actually driven Road America. Never been to Germany.
Can it be a driveshaft measuring contest with no driveshaft? It’s pretty much straight-up revving your Onan at this point.
LOOOOL, I did think about that. What’s the equivalent here?
Amp-measuring contest just doesn’t have the right ring to it
Armature-measuring?
Unless the motors are mounted in the wheels, would there still be a shaft somewhere between the electric motors and the driven wheels?
I mean, they have output shafts, but not really driveshafts in the traditional sense. More akin to an axle being live than mechanically transmitting power up or down the car. Search is being crappy on mobile but if you look for a cutaway view of an EV you’ll see what I mean.
Unless! Someone is doing some kind of silly rear motor/fwd shenanigans, or vice versa, in which case you’d 1) defeat a huge point of EV motor packaging and 2) would have to have a driveshaft tunnel through the cabin (see point #1)
It’s like the Taycan’s Turbos: a vestigial imaginary entity used as a metaphor to grind purists’ gears.
The PRC is now reaping the benefits of the straight to BEV strategy that this site and others spends so much time decrying. Their companies have advanced significantly over what Western and Japanese automakers have put together in their halfhearted approach, and now their BEVs are getting better than Western ICE.
This DOES NOT make me happy since I loathe the CCP, but it is true. Now we need to start copying their technology if we want to get ahead.
An awful lot of videos are showing up with Chinese consumers who have been buying various Chinese EVs only to find the cars are DONE in 2 years. Sure. They can build EVs. But how good are they?
The full range of quality is definitely present there.
“Now we need to start copying their technology if we want to get ahead.”
Farley and Ford are already on it.
How the tables have turned…
Yep, and in the West we did this eyes wide open.
Indeed we did
To be fair, people like Farley have remained comfortably (obscenely) wealthy throughout it all.
By obscenely wealthy you mean when he mortgaged everything including the rights to the Ford name back in 2008 / 2009? Although this might not have affected him personally I guess.
He won’t be wealthy when BYD and others do get a foot hold in this country.
Consumers should win but American Autoworkers and going to be the big losers.
Remains to be seen. They’re a success in the same way Lucid is a success, which is to say that a scummy government has pumped a ton of money into them to build better EVs. Will that be sustainable? See my first sentence.
I’m not refuting you but I don’t think this article is a good example to back up your claim. It’s not a production car EV record; it’s a “four door EV” record. If VW cut some panels and added hinges to its ID.R, then VW would hold this, frankly, meaningless record.
Has Porsche race prepped a Taycan to this level and ran the course? As far as I’m concerned, Xiaomi hasn’t beaten any other OEM at anything. DOT vs Race tires is worth multiple seconds, alone.
Yeah I’d have to imagine a no-holds-barred Taycan build would be at least as fast.
Looks like Lexan windows to go with those Pirelli Slicks, also judging by the Prodrive sticker on the front, I’m guessing this has little if anything to share with a production model.
No matter the vagaries or validity of record setting attempts, Xioami seems dialed in and not just phoning it in.
I see what you did there.
Seems like they’re calling the shots now that they own the record.
Puns but also legitimately yes
Hopefully others get the signal and boost their connections to this new network of vehicular bliss with better talking points.
This has to be COTD.