How the Porsche Taycan is quietly grabbing the accolades and shattering records
From endurance to drifting to acceleration, the Porsche Taycan has racked up performance record after record for electric vehicles in no time at all. And it hasn’t stopped yet
“Because it’s there…”Why do people love breaking records? There’s the glory, of course. And the personal journey that’s often undertaken to achieve it. To some, it all boils down to satisfying a competitive nature.One thing we can all agree on is that records are made to be broken. Or “…Because it’s there”, to borrow the apocryphal words uttered by the British mountaineer George Mallory in 1923 about why he wanted to climb Everest.In the case of the all-electric Porsche Taycan, breaking records has been second nature ever since this milestone in electric mobility was officially unveiled in 2019. Indoors and outdoors, endurance and speed, agility and performance – each acts as a glowing testimony to the car’s wide-ranging capabilities. Here’s a few highlights of some of the landmarks that the Taycan has achieved already.Fastest four-door electric car on the Nürburgring-NordschleifeNürburgring, GermanyAugust 2019As a Porsche test driver, Lars Kern (above right) knows all about driving a Porsche very quickly. His playground just happens to be one of the greatest stretches of road on earth – the Nürburgring. When he describes, in glowing terms, how impressed he was when driving a pre-series Taycan to break the record for the quickest four-door electric car on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, it means something.Kern and the Taycan lapped the 20.6km section of the Green Hell used for record attempts in a scarcely believable seven minutes and 42 seconds – an average speed of 160.52km/h (99.74mph). Other high-speed records that the Taycan has grabbed include a prototype covering a distance of 3,425km in 24 hours at Nàrdo in Italy in temperatures that peaked at 42 degrees Celsius.Fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoorsNew Orleans Convention Center, Louisiana, USAJanuary 2021Standing on the banks of the great Mississippi, the vast New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (MCCNO) is one of the largest exhibition spaces in the US and the longest continuous area of its kind in the country. But like so many other event locations, it’s been a little emptier than normal recently. Where better to drive a Porsche Taycan and set an impressive record then?Here, professional racing car driver Leh Keen – fresh from setting a record for the fastest EV lap time at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in a Taycan Turbo S – wrote his name in the official Guinness Records when driving another Taycan Turbo S along a straight course set up through the MCCNO’s exhibition halls. In doing so, he recorded the fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoors. Even more impressive, the mark of 165.1km/h (102.6mph) was achieved on the first run.Longest recorded permanent drift for an electric vehiclePorsche Experience Centre, Hockenheimring, GermanySeptember 2020On a sunny early autumn day last year, Dennis Retera, a Porsche instructor from the Netherlands, set a benchmark in a rear-wheel drive Taycan that showed off the car’s brilliant handling ability as well as the admirable concentration levels of its pilot.With the Guinness World Records in attendance, and on a 200m-long, 80m-diameter course at the Porsche Experience Centre at the Hockenheimring racetrack in Germany, Retera set a new world best for the longest recorded permanent drift for an electric vehicle. The final figures are impressive: it took 55 minutes, 210 laps and 42.171 kilometres to achieve at an average speed of 46km/h. Didn’t think you could drift a Taycan? For this RWD model, turns out it’s perfect.13 British endurance recordsBrands Hatch Circuit, EnglandDecember 2020Not content with one record, the Taycan hunted down and achieved 13 different ones in a single day at the legendary Brands Hatch Circuit in December 2020. During a 1,000km run around the English racetrack’s famed Indy circuit, two cars – a Taycan 4S and Turbo S – notched one record after another, all ratified by Motorsport UK.It began in the morning gloom at 7am, ending in the dark at 8pm. Several experienced racing drivers – including former F1 and Porsche driver Jonathan Palmer and Le Mans legend Richard Attwood (pictured above, right, with 2020 Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion, Harry King) – battled the heavy rain and damp track conditions. But the records in the electric cars over 1000 kilograms category kept tumbling. They include the British record for distance covered from a standing start in one hour (98.19km) and 12 hours (915.76km) – including charging time.A remarkable showcase of the Taycan and its ability to charge quickly, efficiently and reliably.An eye for detailThe nature of the desire to constantly improve means that we are guaranteed more records to follow. Just hear the words of Porsche test driver Lars Kern after he broke yet another record at the Nürburgring. “We have a little party in the evening, but then the next morning life goes back to normal,” he said. “Everything starts from zero again because there are new cars to be developed and new projects.”Fastest series-production electric car on the Nürburgring-NordschleifeNürburgring, Germany August 2022And just to prove that the records will keep on coming for this ground-breaking Porsche, that man Lars Kern was also at the wheel as the Taycan Turbo S become the fastest series-production electric vehicle ever to lap the Nürburgring-Nordschleife. The Porsche development driver was piloting a standard production Taycan Turbo S, equipped with the new performance kit and Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control. Lars drove the 20.6km in a time of just 7m 33sec.The new performance kit – which is expected to be available for customers in Germany from the end of 2022 – includes 21-inch RS-Spyder-design wheels with road-approved, Pirelli P Zero Corsa sports tyres as well as a software update to the Porsche 4D Chassis Control that’s also part of the offering.“In the past, only thoroughbred super sports cars got into the 7m 33sec range,” says Lars. “With the new performance kit, I was able to push even harder, and the car was even more precise and agile.”
