Chinese electric car brand NextEV, which has launched a $1.2 million hypercar that's embarrassed the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and Pagani with a new lap record around the Nürburgring circuit.
Called the EP9, it's the first model in the NIO brand under the NextEV banner. Just six will be built with a secret British partner and all of them will go to investors in the brand.
According to NextEV, the EP9 has lapped the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife - a 14.17-mile circuit in the German hills used by carmakers as a test bed for their high performance models - in 7 minutes and 5 seconds, making it the fastest electric car to ever circulate the undulating track.
In fact, just four production models have bettered the time: two Radical trackday road cars, a Porsche 918 Spyder and a Lamborghini Aventador SV.
The only problem with the EP9 is that it had to run at 80 per cent capacity to complete such a high speed lap, and to recharge the batteries following that it would need a 45 minute charge.
The EP9s timed lap was 17 seconds quicker than the previous record posted by an electric-only vehicle - a Toyota EV P002 prototype race car.
It was also some way ahead of the best times set by the Audi R8 e-tron (8 minutes 9 seconds) in 2012 and Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive (7 minutes 52 seconds) in 2013.
NextEV has even tested it at the French Paul Ricard circuit where it was only a couple of seconds shy of times set by LMP2 endurance racers.
And the stats are certainly race-car like. From a standing start, the EP9 can hit 62mph in 2.7 seconds. While that's better than most road-registered models, it's still a shade slower than a Tesla Model S P100D.
But the NIO certainly has Tesla licked on top speed, which is a claimed 194mph.
All of this power comes from a 777-volt powertrain that develops 1 Megawatt of thrust. That's the equivalent of 1,341bhp, which makes it more potent than the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder.
It uses two indirectly water-cooled lithium batteries hooked up to four electric motors powering each wheel. Think of it as a 4x4 with jet fighter pace.
http://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/nio-ep9-1341bhp-electric-supercar
10 FASTEST NURBURGRING LAP TIMES FOR PRODUCTION CARS
Time Vehicle Driver Date
06:48.0 Radical SR8 LM Michael Vergers 2009
06:55.0 Radical SR8 Michael Vergers 2005
06:57.0 Porsche 918 Spyder Marc Lieb 2013
06:59.7 Lamborghini Aventador SV (2015) Marco Mapelli 2015
07:08.7 Nissan GT-R Nismo (2015) Michael Krumm 2013
07:11.0 McLaren F1 Promotional XP5 prototype Mika Häkkinen 1996
07:11.6 Gumpert Apollo Sport Florian Gruber 2009
07:12:1 Dodge Viper ACR (2010) Dominik Farnbacher 2011
07:13.0 Porsche 918 Spyder n/a 2014
07:14.6 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Package Akira Iida 2011
The EP9s timed lap was 17 seconds quicker than the previous record