Footage of a multimillion-dollar hypercar crashing in a high-speed test has been released by car manufacturer BYD.
The video, which has been widely circulated on social media, shows the YANGWANG U9 Xtreme hitting a fence while on a closed circuit.
According to BYD, the car was travelling between 420-450km/h when the collision occurred.
After the first impact, the car ricochets from one side of the road to the other before coming to a stop in several pieces
Miraculously, the driver was medically assessed and did not suffer serious injuries as a result of the incident.
BYD’s official account on Chinese social media website Weibo first uploaded the dramatic video.
The accident occurred in the lead-up to BYD’s world-record-setting drive in September last year at the ATP Automotive Testing Papenburg test track in Germany.
Despite the setback, the YANGWANG U9 Xtreme still set an impressive speed record of 496.22 km/h, making it the world’s fastest car, albeit unofficially.
To qualify as a world record, a car’s speed needs to be averaged across two separate runs in opposite directions, which was not possible at the banked Papenburg test track.
The YANGWANG U9 Xtreme takes the existing technical architecture of the U9, which is currently on sale in China, and updates the powertrain, battery, tyres and suspension.
The car is left-hand drive only and is not officially for sale in Australia.
The YANGWANG U9 Xtreme was sold for $3.9 million dollars ($5.6M USD) at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show. There are only 30 units available globally.
Although the clocked speed was impressive, BYD thinks there’s still more performance to be found in its 2,977-horsepower hypercar.
The video of the crash appears to have been released in the build-up to the YANGWANG’s upcoming attempt to crack the 500 km/h barrier.
BYD’s executive vice president Stella Li has previously said that Dubai will be the location of the world-record run. Originally planned for November, BYD was searching for an appropriate 15-km stretch of road and was reportedly working with officials.
It’s yet to be confirmed whether BYD will meet its November deadline, or the precise location of the run.
