Zeekr 8X hits 1,400 PS in drag runs

The Zeekr 8X is a big Chinese luxury SUV. But the reason people are suddenly talking about it is simple — in straight-line tests, it looks absurdly quick. Recent drag-race clips and spec roundups have pushed one detail to the front: the top tri-motor 8X is rated at 1,030 kW, or about 1,381 hp, which is why people keep rounding it to 1,400 PS. That puts it in a very weird category — family-sized crossover on the outside, hypercar-adjacent shove when the road opens up. ### What exactly is the 8X? The 8X is Zeekr’s new large flagship SUV for China, built on the company’s SEA-S hybrid platform. The lineup includes milder versions, but the one driving the hype is the range-topping tri-motor model, which pairs a 2.0-liter turbo engine with three electric motors. In other words, this is not a pure EV drag special — it’s a plug-in hybrid trying to do everything at once. ### Where does the “1,400 PS” number come from? Basically, it’s shorthand. Zeekr’s published figure for the top car is 1,030 kW. Convert that and you land at about 1,381 horsepower, which is close enough that social posts and video titles round it to 1,400 hp or 1,400 PS roughly fourteen hundred metric horses in a road-going SUV. ### What are the actual performance claims? The big official claim is 0–100 km/h in 2.96 seconds for the tri-motor version. More interesting is the longer pull — one recent video summary cites 0–200 km/h in 9.85 seconds. That second number matters more in the real-world bragging war, because it tells you the car is not just launching hard off the line and then running out of breath. It keeps hauling. ### Why are the drag clips getting attention? Because the matchups are familiar. Put a Zeekr 8X next to a Porsche Cayenne or a BMW X5 M, and people think they know the script. Then the Zeekr leaves hard and the script breaks. One widely circulated video frames exactly that comparison — 8X versus Cayenne versus X5 M — across 0–100, 0–200, and quarter-mile, the visual is the story. ### Is this just EV torque doing the usual trick? Partly — but not only that. Instant electric torque still matters, especially in short sprints. The catch is that many heavy fast SUVs can launch well once or twice. What separates the 8X on paper is that it combines that electric hit with enough total system output to stay violent deeper into the speed range, rather than a sprinter who somehow also has middle-distance lungs. ### Why does it matter that it’s a hybrid? Because it changes the old tradeoff. Traditionally, the monster-performance SUV was a thirsty V8 thing, and the efficient one was slower. The 8X is trying to collapse those categories. Zeekr says the top-spec car also carries the current pitch from “buy this because it’s green.” It’s “buy this because it’s faster and still usable.” ### Is this a one-off stunt car? Doesn’t look like it. Zeekr launched the 8X in April and quickly said it logged 10,000 orders within 30 minutes in China. That doesn’t prove every buyer wants the 1,400-PS version, but it does show this is a real product launch, not a vaporware headline machine. The company is also talking openly about overseas rollout timing. ### Bottom line? The Zeekr 8X matters because it makes the old performance-SUV hierarchy look dated. When a huge plug-in hybrid crossover can throw down roughly 1,400 PS and chase 0–200 km/h in under 10 seconds, the benchmark stops being “fast for an SUV.” It becomes just plain fast.