Bangkok Auto Show: BYD's million-level supercar, Yangwang U9 is coming!

At this Bangkok Motor Show, I think the most attractive exhibit at the BYD booth should be the supercar named Yangwang U9. Yangwang is BYD's latest high-end brand that focuses on luxury cars priced at millions, and unexpectedly, BYD launched this sports car after Yangwang U8, which can be said to be the overall display of BYD's rapid development and core technology in recent years. This car has already been launched in the Chinese market, priced at 1.68 million RMB (about 8,462,000 Thai baht), which is quite expensive.

Yangwang U9 adheres to the familial design concept, which expresses pure energy art in the most extreme aesthetic way. This makes the exterior design more visually impactful, with unique lines and curves forming a very aggressive body posture, such as the bold, innovative, and tensile lines. The interstellar crossing headlights at the front of the car are a design symbol of electrified supercars. Its special feature is a radioactive linear lamp group, which is arranged in order and sketches out the situation of the "gate of time and space" on the front of the car.

Long front overhang, short rear overhang, full and powerful front and rear wheel covers, slender body, and low cabin, these elements that a supercar must have are all integrated into this Yangwang U9. The overall shape of the car mimics the water drop-shaped body that reduces wind resistance, weakens the visual boundary of the cabin, and lowers the visual height between the cabin and the ground, creating a feeling of a floating flight cabin. In terms of size, the length, width, and height of the Sky Gazing U9 are 4966/2029/1295 (1338) mm, and the wheelbase is 2900m.

The frameless butterfly wing door is also an essential element for supercars, and Yangwang U9 is also equipped with it. It not only has a design sense of high level but also increases the opening range of the door, making it more convenient for the driver to get in and out. In terms of aerodynamics and heat dissipation, Yangwang U9 is equipped with 6 body channel layouts, and 12 active and passive aerodynamic kits, which enable the vehicle to perform well in high-efficiency heat dissipation, ultra-low wind resistance, high downforce three core aerodynamic indicators. For example, Yangwang U9 cleverly arranged a set of S-shaped air tunnels on both sides of the front cabin, which allowed the upward airflow from the front lip guide to enter the S-shaped air tunnel through the front air grille, and guided up through the S-shaped wind tunnel to the hood on both sides of the tunnel, thus increasing the downforce on the front axle.

The Yangwang U9 is equipped with dual-color, five-spoke large wheel hubs. Both the front and rear tires are the high-performance Pirelli P ZERO series, with the front wheel size being 275/35 R21 and the rear wheel size being 325/30 R21. Concerning the front wheel, let's mention the aerodynamic technology of the Yangwang U9. On the chassis in front of the front wheel, Yangwang U9 has designed a set of annular mountain baffles, which removes the lower surface compared to traditional baffles. The airflow flowing from the direction of the car head is horizontally separated by the annular mountain baffle, smoothly flowing past the sides of the front wheel, reducing the wind resistance caused by the airflow impact on the front wheel.

The design highlight of the tail section is the active tail wing and through-type tail lights. Firstly, when the electric tail wing is opened, the active diffuser wing plate is retracted, which can provide greater downforce for the rear axle. In addition, when the active tail wing closes, the active diffuser wing plate depresses, which can guide the airflow to flow out smoothly and reduce wind resistance. If you choose to install a large tail wing later on (the swan neck large tail wing is priced at 100,000 RMB), this large tail wing uses a gooseneck design, with the bracket fixed on the top end of the tail wing, which can avoid the disturbance caused by the flow at the bottom of the tail wing, the main source of downforce. The tail wing angle of attack and the direction of flow on the roof continuously change to achieve the best efficiency, which ultimately brings a large amount of downforce.

The interior cabin is inspired by the design of future aircraft. Yangwang U9 is equipped with a double-ring cabin design. For example, the left and right mirror images highlight the beauty of symmetry, both the driver and passenger can feel the enveloping atmosphere, and the view from the front of the driver is very wide. The Yangwang U9 has as many as 127 ambient light colors that accompany changes in driving modes and the rhythm of music.

The Yongwang U9 features an e4 platform with four independently driven motors as its core, and each motor has a maximum power of up to 240 kW, a combined power of a staggering 960 kW. Hence, the total horsepower exceeds 1300ps, and the maximum torque is 1680N·m with an acceleration in 2 seconds from 0-100km/h. It has economic, comfortable, sporty, and snowfield driving modes and an exclusive racetrack racing mode. Secondly, thanks to four motor-independent vector controls, Yongwang U9 can independently distribute the optimal torque for each wheel to accurately control the vehicle's driving trajectory, enhance the vehicle's lateral and longitudinal stability, and cooperate with the Yunlun-X intelligent full-active vehicle control system to make the Yongwang U9 more stable when cornering.

In terms of electronic control safety, the U9 adopts ultra-thin low iron loss silicon steel sheets and high-temperature resistant grade permanent magnets to improve motor efficiency, reduce heat loss, and enhance the temperature resistance of the motor. To ensure the safety and performance requirements of the electric drive system, the U9 optimizes the motor magnetic circuit and selects permanent magnets with higher temperature resistance and stronger demagnetization resistance. The permanent magnets can withstand temperatures up to 200°C. In terms of electronic control, the U9 adopts more efficient silicon carbide electronic controls, with a maximum transmission efficiency of 99.8%. It is worth mentioning that a supercar requires an efficient thermal management system to maintain the motor at optimal operating temperature. The U9 innovatively designs three sets of thermal management systems - large, medium, and small cycles - to ensure cooling performance in different scenarios. Both front and rear axle motors are equipped with dual electronic oil pumps, with each pump individually controlling the oil cooling of a motor, achieving intelligent control of cooling oil quantity for each motor.