Chinese EV Rips Off Ken Block's Gymkhana Vids—But We're Not Mad About It
We've been hearing about the superiority of Chinese electric cars a lot lately, but the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra seems to stand out even in a dense field of impressive vehicles. This car, made by a consumer electronics company out of Beijing, supposedly smokes everything and requires a special license to buy. I'm not sure if or when we'll ever get to drive one, but we're getting a pretty fun exhibition of what it can do with this radical nine-minute Gymkhana-style stunt video.
Get a load of 'Qionghai Drift,' a hilariously intense drive from a hotel to a wedding:
It looks like there's a behind-the-scenes version of this on the Chinese site Bilibi, and it's been re-uploaded a few other times to YouTube, but I think UpDrift is the original poster. As you'll see if you watch the whole thing, which you totally should, there are fun cinematic and comedic elements making the (deeply impressive) driving even more fun to watch. Ye drifts around rolling limos at one point. UpDrift/YouTube
The driver has been identified as Ye Zhicheng (叶志成), a Formula Drift wheelman who has run a wacky-looking Nissan Cefiro sedan race car with Rocket Bunny-style front end in FD.
Digging into comments and captions, it seems the video was shared by Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Jun, somewhere on social media as a positive endorsement. I haven't been able to find that yet—Chinese websites are tough to navigate if you don't understand the language, but if somebody has a link, drop it in the comments here!
Looks like the video was shot in Qionghai, which is on an island south of the Chinese mainland. You can see the car peeling out of the Holiday Inn Resort Qionghai Guantang's front entrance turn-around circle at about the 40-second mark.
As for the car itself, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is a blisteringly fast luxury sedan that has already collected some accolades in its home country, including: The fastest production car at Shanghai International Circuit (SIC): 2'09″944
The fastest four-door, mass-produced car at Chengdu Tianfu International Circuit: 1'26″741
The fastest four-door, mass-produced car at Zhuzhou International Circuit: 1'41″806
The fastest four-door, mass-produced car at Zhuhai International Circuit: 1'37″758 There are quite a few needle-threading shots. UpDrift/YouTube
A press release about the car from earlier this year detailed some mind-blowing specifications (like 0 to 100 kph in 1.98 seconds; 100 kph back to a stop in 30.8 meters) and some goofy bling (like a 24K gold carbon fiber emblem). The price was posted at RMB 529,900 (Chinese yuan) in February, which converts to just about $74,000 in American money right now. If the car's claimed level of performance and luxury are even close to reality, that'd be the bargain of the century if we could figure out how to import one of these.
That said, don't forget that there have been some value controversies associated with this car already. Sometimes if something looks too good to be true … it is.
But there's no denying it looks incredible, turning its tires into smoke and noise, in this video.
Got any more context for us about this wild stunt display? Drop me a line at andrew.collins@thedrive.com.
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