The Electric Yangwang U9 Supercar Can Literally Jump Thanks To New Twists On Legendary Suspension Tech

Yangwang U9 Topshot
ADVERTISEMENT

This is the Yangwang U9 and it looks really ugly but technically amazing. Not only can this BYD-built Chinese supercar reportedly dash from zero-to-sixty in two seconds flat, it can drive on three wheels, dance, and jump off the ground from a parked position. What sort of autobot are we looking at here?

In terms of suspension, the YangWang U9 gets its hardware from BYD’s DiSus suspension lineup, which sounds like it was named by someone who hasn’t been on the internet lately. DiSus-C is variable damping, DiSus-A is air ride, DiSus-P is a hydraulic system, and the DiSus-X system on this vehicle is everything put in a blender to create a delicious combination of air springs, variable hydraulic pressure, and adaptive damping garnished with a sprig of road scanning. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve been into European cars at some point in the last 60 years or so. What we have here is some sort of hydropneumatic suspension system, which explains an awful lot.

Yangwang U9 1

In a typical car suspension system, there are springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars. Springs are what the body of the car actually rides on, dampers keep the springs in check by damping excess motions, and anti-roll bars keep things level in the turns. This is a gross oversimplification, but we’re going to get through this quickly. In contrast, hydropneumatic suspension typically uses the compressible nature of safe inert gas as springs, the non-compressible nature of liquid for damping, and a series of lines for leveling. There’s also some form of pressure management, be it mechanical or electromechanical, and a pump. Again, an oversimplification, but this is more of a quick look than a deep dive. The benefits of hydropneumatic suspension include great ride quality, variable ride height, self-leveling when a vehicle is loaded, and the ability to do some wacky stuff.

Yangwang U9 No Wheel

Regarding wacky stuff, let’s start with the three-wheeling thing. While it’s still very impressive to see a car pick up a corner with no wheel and just keep driving, Citroen did this ages ago. You might remember the films of the DS driving around on three wheels and that’s basically what’s happening here. Raise ride height, play with pressures, and bam.

Alright, so that’s driving on three wheels out of the way, what about dancing? In the video, the BYD Yangwang U9 can be seen dancing around like your nan at a family barbecue, just swaying in the breeze. It’s pretty fun, but it’s also not groundbreaking if you’ve ever worked on heavily-depreciated Benzes with Active Body Control. Yeah, you can make the worst S-Class ever made dance on its ABC system with a scan tool. Just have a look:

As for road-scanning combined with hydraulic body control, it’s really an evolution of Mercedes’ Magic Body Control. While LiDAR was far-off technology when the W222 S-Class debuted, that last-generation flagship could use stereo cameras just like BYD suggests to scan the road ahead and measure imperfections. The suspension control module would then prime the suspension for these bumps by adjusting damping to iron out potholes and speed humps. Granted, this system didn’t vary height in response to bumps or scan roads when traveling north of 81 mph, but this is decade-old tech we’re talking about.

Alright, so what about jumping? In the video, the Yangwang U9 manages to hop just a couple of inches off of the ground – not far, but still not something you’d see most cars doing. This act might recall shades of that outrageous video of a Bose-modified Lexus LS400 hopping a railway tie on flat ground, but that’s not quite right. The Bose system used linear electromagnetic motors instead of dampers and torsion bars instead of coil springs, making it both really bizarre and not a hydropneumatic or oleopneumatic suspension system. As anyone who’s spent time in So-Cal, played Midnight Club, or watched enough ’90s rap videos can tell you, sufficient hydraulic or air pressure can totally make a car hop. While the music video for Still D.R.E. shows the more traditional single-axle hop, some lowriders can pick all four tires up off the ground at the same time. Pretty neat, right?

It’s almost amazing that it took this long for an automaker to build a car that hops, and BYD comes along with one that jumps higher than a house. That’s only because houses can’t jump, but still.

Yangwang U9 Rear

While the majority of tricks shown off by the Yangwang U9 aren’t entirely new, I’m still incredibly stoked that another manufacturer is working on suspension that doesn’t use traditional springs or dampers. Oleopneumatic Citroens are some of my favorite cars, so although the French marque doesn’t do much with the tech these days, it’s nice to see another automaker pick up the torch. Consider this eyebrow-raising tech demo the beginning of the next chapter.

(Photo credits: BYD)

Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.

Relatedbar

Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.

About the Author

View All My Posts

23 thoughts on “The Electric Yangwang U9 Supercar Can Literally Jump Thanks To New Twists On Legendary Suspension Tech”

  1. “the non-compressible nature of liquid for damping“

    This again? Everything is compressible, at least until you start messing with nuetronium, which you can’t (mess with, or maybe compress, it’s complicated). I ranted about this when Jason made his own oil back in October 2022.

    The compressibility of oil is 1.5GPa, water is 2.2GPa, steel is 160 GPa and air is 0.0001GPa. All the things you can make a car from are compressible, and measurably so, by actual science!

    1. “Pi=3.14”

      This again? Pi is irrational, at least until you start messing around with pie. I ranted about this back in my sophomore high school physics class.

      3 digits of Pi is 3.14, 4 is 3.141, 5 is 3.1415, and 6 is 3.14159. Any fraction with Pi in the numerator or denominator is irrational, unless it’s in both, according to actual math!

      1. Saying liquids aren’t compressible is not pedantry about a degree of accuracy, it’s like saying pi isn’t even a number.

        I’m an engineer, using approximations is fine, making false statements is not. This whole “incompressible” myth is so widespread that we’re in danger of having to just redefine what the words mean just so people aren’t using it wrong. Like what literally happened to “literally”, and maybe “coupe”.

        1. Nah dude, liquids are called incompressible as an approximation. Nobody is saying that oil is 10^3 times less compressible than air because it’s easier to conceptualize that it’s incompressible.

          It’s kind of like using the word “impossible.” Nearly always an inaccurate word when used but nobody except for the people who sat in the front row in Statistics 1000 will complain about it in a public setting.

          See also: “centrifugal force”

          1. Part of my job is to occasionally calculate the effects of the compressibility of a liquid. And then sometimes go explain to someone else with a degree in engineering that making the oil drillings bigger makes the system twice as bouncy, so could they not.

            I have no feelings at all about the incorrect usage of “impossible” or “centrifugal force”.

            Less vs fewer on the other hand…

  2. Regarding the Bose Suspension… “The project was a technical success but a commercial failure because the unique suspension system was too heavy and expensive for automakers to incorporate into vehicles”
    https://incompliancemag.com/bose-electromagnetic-car-suspension-system/#:~:text=The%20project%20was%20a%20technical,automakers%20to%20incorporate%20into%20vehicles.

    Now having said that, will this fancy suspension this Yangwang has have the same weight and cost issue? I’m guessing the answer to that is ‘yes’

    And for the same reasons, the ‘4 wheel steering’ thing always seems to come and go for the same reasons. It’s a nice idea. But it’s generally not worth the added cost, weight and complexity.

    So really this ‘dancing suspension’ show doesn’t impress me that much.

    You know what would impress me? A cost-effective suspension that takes the energy from suspension movements to recharge a battery pack.

    This is apparently being worked on by BMW, Audi and others.
    https://electrek.co/2022/12/01/bmw-designs-ev-suspension-system-that-generates-usable-energy/

    https://www.carthrottle.com/post/audi-is-working-on-battery-charging-suspension/

  3. I gotta say i like this car.
    Yes the lights and some other bits look weird but the overall shape is great.An almost perfectly proportioned sports car

  6. Unpopular take but I think it looks awesome! I mean, c’mon it’s no Mitsuoka Orochi. I think whomever designed it did a really great job. I’d rock one for sure if I had money to burn.

    1. Agreed. It’s a well proportioned sexy little beast.
      Normally I don’t like showy headlights but the way they incorporated them into the design is fantastic.

      Oh wait.. Mitsuoka Orochi? Are you being sarcastic? A Mitsuoka Orochi looks like the offspring you’d get if a Demogorgon fucked an RD2 Tiburon. Ewww.

      Now I can’t tell if we agree or not.

      1. We’re on the same page. The Orochi is fugly. My sentence should be read like “It’s not ugly like an Orochi.” Heck say it aloud in an Andrew Dice Clay voice for full effect.

    2. the jumping mach 5 sound effect went through my head immediately…I’d type it out, but honestly don’t know how to effectively spell it.

Leave a Reply