The 1,527 Horsepower Xiaomi SU7 Might Be The Real Deal On Track
The Taycan-beating Chinese super sedan has finally been driven by Chinese media. They're impressed.
- The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra comes with 1,526 horsepower and costs $72,750.
- The brand wants to sell 10,000 units of the SU7 Ultra in 2025.
- Recently, the SU7 Ultra beat a Porsche Taycan Turbo GT around the Shanghai International Circuit by about 1.5 seconds.
It can be pretty hard to keep up with the breakneck speed of China’s electric vehicle industry. Within about 18 months, Xiaomi pivoted from making cheap cellphones and laptops to a full-blown electric car.
That model rocketed to the top of Chinese sales charts and even impressed the hell out of Ford’s CEO, who drove one around the Chicagoland area for weeks. Now, the brand has put 1,500 worth of electric motors in the thing, and they’re gunning for necks of some of the fastest EVs on the planet in the form of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra.
Well, now the Ultra is officially been released A handful of Chinese media drivers have finally gotten behind the wheel for a review—both in the context of on-the-road driving and hammering it in more aggressive circumstances. Haoran Zhou, the former car PR person and F1 reporter, did a lead-follow of the SU7 Ultra on track.
I have to note that this is technically a step down from the full-race-ready track-prepped version that Xiaomi sent around the Nürburgring. The two cars still have the same 1,526 horsepower, but the lap-setting version has essentially a full carbon-fiber body, complete with huge brake ducts right into the side of the car. This version uses mostly the body of the standard SU7, although it does have a new aluminum hood.
Because of this, the SU7 Ultra is still as fully featured as the standard car. Zhou spent half of the video using Xiaomi’s driver assistance features. It appears to work as well as the standard SU7, but Zhou did remark that it was a little surreal to have a 1,500-horsepower car do some sort of autonomous driving. “I’m trying my best to find a positive use case for it,” he said, theorizing that these features would save wear and tear on the vehicle itself between track day use. “No normal human being would be driving like this in an SU7 Ultra,” he said.
On track, the SU7 was driven in “Endurance Mode,” which limits the power output to around 900 horsepower. Zhou was positive, but he was very pointed in his critique of the SU7 Ultra. Of course, it’s very fast, but he remarked that the car’s weight was noticeable in curves, and at least compared to the Zeekr 001 FR, it didn’t feel as quick in the limited power mode. But it's still an incredibly capable car.
Zhou admitted that part of his critique may be somewhat limited because of his lack of skill. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra beat the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT around the Shanghai International Circuit around a track not long ago. All of this for about $73,000.
Not too bad for a brand’s first effort in making cars.
Contact the author: Kevin.Williams@InsideEVs.com
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