Xiaomi has put its YU7 GT through a driverless lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, with the electric SUV completing the 20.832-kilometer circuit in 10:29.483.

The run makes Xiaomi the first brand to post an official driverless lap record at the German track. The Nürburgring has also added a new official category for autonomous driving after the attempt.

The YU7 GT ran without human input on a circuit known for high speeds, blind corners, elevation changes and long technical sections. The Nordschleife has more than 150 corners and has long served as a proving ground for carmakers testing durability, handling and performance.

Xiaomi used the run to show how its autonomous driving system handles track conditions beyond normal road use. Most brands visit the Nürburgring to chase lap times with test drivers. Xiaomi used the same venue to test how its software reads the road and controls the car at speed.

Based on the run, the YU7 GT reached up to 150 kph on parts of the circuit. It later hit 210 kph on the Döttinger Höhe back straight, one of the fastest sections of the track.

The YU7 GT used the Track Package and relied on NVIDIA Drive AGX Thor hardware, along with LiDAR and 4D millimeter wave radar. Xiaomi said the system uses an end-to-end architecture and a vehicle dynamics model to read vehicle behavior and road conditions in real time.

The system controls steering, braking and power delivery while predicting how the vehicle will react under load. That work becomes more difficult on a circuit like the Nordschleife, where speeds, camber changes and corner sequences keep changing.

The autonomous lap was far slower than the YU7 GT’s driver-led runs. Xiaomi’s SUV has recorded laps in the seven-minute range with a human driver, including a 7:22.755 production SUV record at the Nordschleife.

The gap shows where autonomous track driving stands today. The car may be fast, but the software still puts safety and consistency ahead of outright speed.

Xiaomi’s run is not the first driverless circuit record in the world. In 2017, the NIO EP9 completed a driverless lap at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas. The Nürburgring attempt still stands out because of the track’s length and difficulty.

The latest lap gives Xiaomi another talking point as carmakers put more weight on software, sensors and vehicle control. Faster cars still matter. Smarter cars are now chasing their own records.