You Can Now Watch The Nio EP9's Full 6min 45sec Nurburgring Lap

Footage of the Nio EP9 electric hypercar's Huracan Performante-smashing Nurburgring lap is now available for your viewing pleasure

Matt Robinson

16 May 2017

In case you missed the news last week, you should know there’s a new king of the ‘Ring. We’re talking about the Nio EP9 electric hypercar, which has beaten not just the Lamborghini Huracan Performante’s 06:52 effort, but also the 06:48 set by the Radical SR8 LM a few years ago.

Like the Radical - which was an actual racing car with number plates - its status as a ‘production car’ is highly debatable. The EP9 is an expensive and extremely low volume car, with just 16 to be built by a small team in the UK and sold for £1.15 million apiece. But even so, the lap is an impressive thing to watch, with the 1341bhp output having no trouble overcoming the car’s relatively porky 1800kg mass. 648kg of that is made up of the batteries alone.

What we find particularly interesting is when we spoke to the drivers behind the Nio EP9’s last Nurburgring attempt - which yielded an 07:05 lap - we were told heat management of the batteries prevented them from being at maximum power at any point of the lap. We’re still trying to find exactly what the team did to counteract this issue, and will report back when we know more.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

[DELETED]

If you wanted to get classified information from Lamborghini executives, just tape them to a chair and force them to watch this. You’ll get all the information you want.

#savage

WHEN IS THE LAFERRARI COMPETITOR COMING?!?!

Hmmmm, seems electrifying

Lmao

Pretty soon these nurburgring videos will be boring because times keep getting faster at one point there will ne a lap time that’s 3 seconds long

#gtavlogic

http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2017/03/10/636247746742283272986939632_1664899583534a90ba1e511978239735_orig.jpg he be like “proud of you son”

Still not the EP9 I would like to have.

What EP9 you meant?

Almost sounds like it’s being propelled by a turbine engine.

If we do the maths, that’s 3 seconds being shaved off using 1340 bhp powerplant compared to Radical’s 449 bhp. Not to mention the power to weight ratio which sits at 745 bhp/tonne for the Nio EP9 compared to 690bhp of the Radical’s. So that’s 891 bhp or a Bugatti Veyron power figure and a difference of 55 bhp/tonne being added just to go 3 seconds a lap faster. Doesn’t sound very efficient but I guess it’s worth considering all the luxuries being a road car.

Imagine a Radical weighing electric car doing that lap. I’d imagine his face throughout the lap being like this… :P

I think I saw some rain drops in there (could be just some bugs experiencing how fast the car was though), and the track looks like it was a little wet. Maybe that time gap would have been even bigger in perfect dry conditions (I don’t know which were the weather condition when the radical set up the record).