The Youxia X is a new Electric Super Sedan from China

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This is the incredible Youxia X electric super sedan, unveiled yesterday evening in China and set to compete against the upcoming Tesla Model 3. Power comes from an electric motor with 348hp and 440nm, and range is 460 kilometer. Production is scheduled to begin in late 2016 by a new Shanghai-based company called Youxia Motors.

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We feel pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the car but unpleasantly screwed because we, and all Chinese automotive media, were led to believe Youxia Motors was going to unveil a sportscar called the Youxia One. But they didn’t. All references to the Youxia One have been removed from the Youxia website, except here (scroll down), and the status of the project is unclear.

But let’s forgive Youxia for now and focus on the X:

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A great ass and we just love Pink shoes. As for the car; the Youxia X is by far the most beautiful vehicle we have seen coming out of China, ever and period. Rear light units are superb, and so is the subtle rear wing integrated in the boot lit. Profile is sleek and sporty, the wheels are huge and fitted with shiny silver multispoke alloys.

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A bit of Tesla up front, but certainly not too much. The grille is a work of art, more on that below. The name of the car and company, ‘Youxia’ (游侠), comes from the Chinese name for the American ‘Knight Rider‘ television series (霹雳游侠), starring a car called KITT and a man called David Hasselhoff.

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The Youxia X is the brainchild of the 28-year old (!!!) Knight Rider fan and CEO Huang Xiuyuan, who claims he first saw the X in a dream he had back in 2014. He then assembled a team of 50 engineers and designers that eventually developed the Youxia X. Production is scheduled to start in 2016 and deliveries will begin in early 2017, if everything goes according to plan.

Price will range from 200.000 to 300.000 yuan ($32.000 – 48.000). Surprisingly cheap for such a big car but the amount includes the entire 90.000 yuan green-car subsidy of the Chinese government. Youxia says this price will set up the X for competition with the upcoming Tesla Model 3.

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The Youxia X will be powered by an electric motor with a peak power of 348hp and 440nm, mated to a 40kWh, a 60kWh, or a 85kWh battery.

Range with the latter is claimed to be 460 kilometer, with a 0-100 acceleration of 5.6 seconds. Range with the 60kWh stands at 330 kilometer and range with the 40kWh at 220 kilometer.

Charging of the 85kWh battery takes half an hour on a supercharger for a 270 kilometer range. No other claims on charging announced.

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The vehicle unveiled had an interior but photos were not allowed. Happily, Youxia has a bunch of pics on its website, showing a very impressive high tech interior with an almost unbelievable 17.3 inch vertically positioned touch screen in the center console.

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The operating system is called… no kidding… ‘KITT OS’. It is based on another operating system which is called ‘Youxia OS’, which is based on Google Android 5.0 (other company sources say 5.1). The system promises full connectivity with Android and Apple devices, including Apple Watch. It is fully inter-connected, has an in-build wifi hotspot, comes with television, and with a function allowing full remote control of the vehicle, similar to the BYD Su Rui.

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The system can pipe the sound of your favorite car into the cabin for that racy electric feeling. The list includes the brand new Ferrari 488 GTB, the ultra-rare Ferrari Sergio, the Ferrari LaFerrari dubbed the Ferrari Sergio, and the Jaguar F-Type. No Tesla Model S..?

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The eye catching grille is actually a holographic display, inspired by the Knight Industries KIT 2000 and 3000, the vehicle used in the Knight Rider television show. The screen can display the typical KITT red running lights, or the Youxia logo, or anything else you might like.

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KITT.

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The Youxia logo.

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A cat’s head.

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We are truly impressed by the Youxia X and by the plans the company has for the future. They seem well-funded and obviously employ talented designers and developers. However, taking the vehicle to production will cost a lot of money and effort more, much more indeed than a mere 50 men can handle.

But so far so very good, and we will closely follow the company’s progress. Now, what about that One..?

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89 COMMENTS

  1. 460km. That’s a pleasant surprise.

    As for the performance, I wish it was a little faster, maybe a sub-5 acceleration.

    But overall it’s pretty good, and this is by far the most unique Chinese car.

      • Tesla? Oh yeah, you’re talking about the electric hatchback Jaguar XF knockoff.

        Youxia =/= Tesla. Do Tesla cars have those sharp head/tail lights or side?

          • The detail that I can see being ‘Mr. Tesla’ is the front grille. Yet it looks more like an Audi’s rather than Tesla’s.

        • 17 inch display? Sound familiar? Front grille, which I’m not mad about because of the hologram, cool. And the freaking door handles, looking by the pictures they are pretty much the same as Tesla model S. I can’t wait to hear all the other small things they have copied from Tesla. But still more competition is good.

      • This looks nothing like the Tesla other than the fact that it has a 17″ screen, in fact this car looks more impressive and i would buy this over tesla if the quality is up to scratch. In fact i am sure many tesla owners would prefer this car shape and the fat it has a holographic screen is just a bonus.

        As for quality, well batteries are batteries and suspension is suspension, without the need to develop or design or install a patrol engine this car could be a real competitor to tesla in quality if the gov invests in it and helps to get it made.

        • You say it looks like nothing like the tesla? You must be drunk. It is clear that they took a tesla chassie and components and just changed it a little bit. You can see it on the sides of the car, on the shape and the front. Also on the steeringwheel instrument cluster and everything else. One think they usually cant do is copy a product and keeping the production quality… What is wrong with chinese companies? why must they always copy everything. They should be sued! Invent something new China fuckers! Stealing is all you can do..

  2. Finally a company that is serious about electric cars and will do what is possible since long time in term of range and performance. Wish good luck to Youxia.
    This new brand also show the shortsight policy of most of the Chinese automakers, even the large and powerfull state own enterprise, that still play with ridicolous EV with extremely poor performance and range.
    Youxia could be a stimulus to really work on serious project when comes to EV and not just compliance car to please the government efforts to introduce EV in the domestic market.

  3. They didn’t present a supercar because they haven’t managed to copy one, while they obviously copied Tesla heavily.

    I’d be ashamed to call this thing my own design.

    • Im guessing you’re not from europe. Renault has had that for years. As well as some others.

      But its really lame honestly, because the sound is coming through the speakers and not “outside” or under the hood.

  4. Company like Tesla spend huge amounts of money on R&D and therefore create innovations and econmic growth and chinese people just copy it and can offer it with a better price because they didn’t have R&D costs and have lower quality. In the end they destroy the innovative companies. Great! That’s what I call fairness of the 21th century!

    • You must not know very much about Tesla because they WANT to be copied. You have entirely the wrong idea about what the purpose of Tesla actually is.

      • Tesla may want to be copied, but surely that doesn’t include this kind of rip-off.

        For one thing, decent thing to do is to mark a copy as such.

        Another would be to muffle all that noise about one’s IP until one actualy brainstorms some significant ideas, materialized inside a good product, desired and bought on actual market.

  5. Elon Musk is playing chess, he do not care about other people jacking his design what he is setting Tesla up for is to supply tesla and other car companies with thier battery technology. Gigawatt Battery Factories will be in a position to supply the world with it’s Batteries and Tesla will make more money then God.

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